No.12 Illinois 73, Iowa 61: An Opportunity Squandered

IOWA CITY -- Iowa fell to Illinois on Sunday evening at home, 73-61. With the loss it will be awfully difficult for the Hawkeyes to land a spot in the coming NCAA Tournament.

Here are three takeaways from the final game of the season.

Iowa has had its share of slow starts throughout the season. Unfortunately for the Hawkeyes the term 'slow start' doesn't do Sunday evening's performance justice. Over the first 8:05 of the game, Iowa shot 1-of-14 from the field. Illinois led 22-4 at that point.

"Not only were the jumpers [not going in], but the stuff in close kept rolling out on us," Fran McCaffery said after the game. "We just kind of tried to stay the course after that."

Junior forward Payton Sandfort -- who finished with 23 points on 9-of-19 shooting -- felt as though he and the team were getting the looks they wanted.

"We missed some shots that we normally make," he said. "We got all the shots we've been making at a pretty high clip lately, and some of them hit the net before they decided it wasn't our day, I guess. That's how it goes."

Things did improve after that, as Iowa went 10-of-19 from the field to finish the half, and the Hawkeyes trailed only 39-29 at the break after that ice-cold tart. But the shooting numbers didn't improve much the rest of the way.

In total, Iowa shot 23-of-65 (35.4 percent) from the field and 7-of-21 (33.3 percent) from three for the game. They were still able to get the once-momentous lead down to just four, but the crew of Hawks just couldn't overcome their poor shooting -- or lack of offensive rebounding. The Hawkeyes grabbed just three offensive boards over 40 minutes.

"We missed 42 shots," McCaffery continued. "You've got to get more than three back. You've got to go to the glass when the shots aren't going. To be honest with you, we only got two back, because one was a team rebound. Two offensive rebounds with 42 misses -- that's unacceptable."

When the Illini lead fell to just four, McCaffery saw the tough shooting rear its ugly head once again.

"We got consecutive stops in that one stretch," he said. "Tony (Perkins') breakaway dunk [that missed], and he got it to the rim a couple times, and we had a couple open threes. They just didn't go."

The three seniors that saw the floor for the Hawkeyes didn't help the effort much, as Perkins, Patrick McCaffery and Ben Krikke combined to go 2-of-16 from the floor for just nine points in their final regular season game in Iowa City.

Freshman point guard Brock Harding was a monumental factor in Iowa getting back into the contest. With two early fouls sending Perkins to the bench, Harding saw the floor for 12 minutes in the first half and put up six points and dished out six assists.

"He was great," McCaffery said. "He gave us a huge lift. We got it back under ten, so, it felt like in the second half we could make a run."

"I thought his decision-making and energy level was great. That's the key. When you're putting the ball in his hands and he's going into attack mode and making plays, that can go one of two ways. He was really a positive influence, not only in terms of getting his teammates involved, but getting the crowd involved."

The guard has provided some much-needed life off the bench throughout the season, and the matchup with Illinois was no different.

"He came in with a bunch of energy," Sandfort said. "That was something that was kind of lacking from our first group, myself included. It shouldn't be that way, but I'm really proud of him. He came in and made some big plays, some effort plays. That kind of got the whole team going and started the run."

Though Harding played well with Perkins sidelined, he only saw the floor for two minutes in the second half.

"We gave Brock another shot," McCaffery said. "But I thought Tony did some really good stuff. You look at the stat sheet, and he's 1-of-10 today. He was battling. He was aggressive defensively, he was attacking the rim, he ran our stuff. That's our guy."

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With a win over Illinois, Iowa's chances of earning an NCAA Tournament bid would have been significantly better. Now, without that victory, they'll likely have to go on some sort of a run in the Big Ten Tournament.

"It's going to take more of the same," McCaffery said. "You lose a game we all wanted to win. The kids fought, the kids prepared and it didn't go well today. You don't want to start throwing everybody under the bus and blaming. There's one area I thought that, honestly, we had to address -- offensive rebounding."

"We did a lot of good things, and I thought we competed. It wasn't our day, and we have another opportunity this week to be better."

Sandfort agreed that he and the Hawkeyes are on the right track, even though Sunday's game didn't go their way.

"We've just got to keep doing what we've been doing, sticking with it, staying positive and ready to go," he said. "We have some great opportunities coming up next week. You can't ever get too high or too low. We've done a good job of that to this point. It seems like every time we've been out of it, we get right back in it. So, we'll find a way."

Up next, the seventh-seeded Hawkeyes will travel to Minneapolis for the Big Ten Tournament. Iowa is slated to take on tenth-seeded Ohio State on Thursday evening at 5:30 pm CT. The game will be broadcast on Big Ten Network.

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"We've just got to play with as much effort as we can and let the chips fall where they may," Sandfort said. "We don't have a ton of control over [the committee picking us to make the tournament], but it's just like we don't have control over shots going in. You've just got to take good shots, shoot it confidently. I think if we bring a different level of energy, swagger and confidence to Minneapolis, I think we've got a good chance."