EVANSTON -- Iowa (15-14, 6-12) traveled east to take on Northwestern (16-13, 7-11) for the second time this season, falling to the Wildcats, 68-57 on Friday night. In what was a pivotal game for the Hawkeyes' Big Ten Tournament hopes, Iowa dropped the ball to put themselves in an even more difficult position to reach the postseason. Between Northwestern's dictation of the pace and the inability of Josh Dix or Payton Sandfort to score consistently, the Hawkeyes weren't able to get it done.

Here are three takeaways from the loss.

For the first time since his sophomore campaign, Sandfort was held to single digits on the scoreboard in back-to-back games. After putting up just seven points against Illinois on 2-of-10 shooting on Tuesday, the Waukee native totaled just nine points against the Wildcats, finishing 3-13 from the field.

"I thought he was forcing it a little bit too much," Fran McCaffery said following the road defeat. "He can kind of do that sometimes and get it going. He did that last year here when we won, and he's done that a couple times this year when we've won, so I kind of let him go. He felt really bad because he felt like he took some bad shots. I look at this way -- when your best shooter shoots the ball, that's always a good thing."

Sandfort was clearly emotional following the loss, and Northwestern head coach Chris Collins appeared to be consoling him as the teams went through postgame handshakes.

"Payton wants it bad," McCaffery added. "I mean, he wants to lead the team, he wants to play hard and play well. He played really hard and gave me everything he has. I love that kid, and it wasn't one of his better days. But, he's going to come back in the next one and be ready."

Dix, Iowa's second-leading available scorer wasn't able to get going either, finishing with 10 points on 3-12 shooting, to result in Iowa's two top scorers finishing 6-of-25 (24%) from the field.

"Sometimes that happens," Drew Thelwell told Gary Dolphin following the loss. "We've just got to find a way to play as a collective unit when not everybody is hitting shots. ... This one is tough."

Thelwell carried a decent portion of the load on offense, leading the way with 14 points after returning from an ankle injury that forced him to miss the matchup with Illinois.

"He was phenomenal," McCaffery said following the game. "We need him for a number of different reasons. Obviously, he shot it well, and he penetrates. He enables us to sub when we're working hard on defense and not have guys that are exhausted in the last couple minutes."

Those that have watched even a small portion of the McCaffery era know that he likes his teams to play with pace. An offensive-centric philosophy, the Hawkeyes tend to put up points and put them up in bunches.

The Wildcats' defensive tactics to slow things down went exactly to plan. Northwestern completely dictated the pace against the Hawkeyes, forcing them to play a majority of the night in the half court offense as opposed to getting out in transition as they prefer to do.

"You've got to give the defense credit," McCaffery said postgame. "It was a very physical game, but I thought we had some really good looks in that one stretch where they got some separation. ... Now, what we didn't do was get it back. If you go on a bit of a cold-streak, what you've got to do is get some second attempts. We didn't in that stretch."

Though McCaffery gave credit to what the Wildcats were able to conjure up defensively, he pointed to his own team's struggles as the main culprit for Iowa's inability to score in the halfcourt.

"I thought we quick shot the ball some," he added. "I don't think we ran enough. We had some good break opportunities, but we didn't run enough. I don't think we moved it side to side enough, we kind of got locked in on one side, and we shot some contested shots. When you shoot contested shots, you're going to shoot a low percentage."

Shoot a low percentage, they did. The Hawkeyes made just 21-of-58 (36.2%) shots from the field, and 8-of-25 (32%) attempts from three.

"We had a lot of good looks, some of them didn't go down," Thelwell added. "I think we have to drive to the basket a bit more and get easier looks for ourselves."

Going into the matchup with the Wildcats, Iowa more-or-less needed a win to solidify a spot in the 15-team Big Ten Tournament. With two games left -- one against No. 8 Michigan State on Thursday next week, and another on the road against Nebraska the following Sunday -- it's going to be awfully difficult for the Hawks to pull out a win prior to the season's end.

Going into the season, Iowa had high hopes. With Sandfort returning for his final year of eligibility, the Hawkeyes hoped to return to the NCAA Tournament after a year-long hiatus. They hoped to finish in the top half of the Big Ten again. They hoped to return to national relevance with additions of Drew Thelwell and Seydou Traore to help their defensive effort.

Instead, the Hawkeyes dealt with a myriad of injuries, most notably to Owen Freeman, who is out for the remainder of the season following finger surgery, and Cooper Koch has suffered from an undisclosed medical issue that has left him out the majority of the year. Not only that, but the Hawkeyes have lost eight games by double-digits, put together a record of 1-11 against Quad 1 teams and currently rank 337th in the country in defense.

Now, amidst all the struggles throughout the season, the Hawkeyes find themselves amongst the worst teams in the conference after the road loss to Northwestern. They now sit 15th in the Big Ten, and in the doldrums of the Big Ten Tournament race alongside 5-13 Penn State and 4-13 Washington. In what's been a disappointing season, things continue to trend downward.

The outlook for the remainder of the 2024-25 season is about as grim as it has been all year, and on Friday night, the final nail may have been hammered into the coffin for the Hawkeyes -- and maybe into the McCaffery era.

NEXT: Iowa will return home on Thursday, March 6 to take on Michigan State (23-5, 14-3) and celebrate Senior Day. The game will be broadcast on FS1 at 7 pm CT.

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