March 29, 2024

Iowa flips switch, rallies past Rutgers

IOWA CITY (AP) — Iowa is a young team loaded with potential.

The Hawkeyes were nearly a victim of their own inexperience on Sunday against a Rutgers team that still hasn’t won a Big Ten road game.

Senior Peter Jok scored 18 points with 11 rebounds and Iowa rallied from nine down to beat Rutgers 68-62 and move back to .500 in the Big Ten.

Freshman Cordell Pemsl had 13 for the Hawkeyes (10-7, 2-2 Big Ten), who used improved defense to key a late 17-4 run that clinched their seventh win in nine games.

“Instead of rolling over, we decided to come out as a collective unit and get stops that led to easy buckets. We did that down the stretch,” Pemsl said.

Iowa committed 18 turnovers, got crushed on the offensive glass 19-9 and went more than eight minutes without a field goal. But the Hawkeyes woke up after 30 sluggish minutes, and Jordan Bohannon’s layup off a steal gave the Hawkeyes a 57-55 lead with 3:59 left.

Nicholas Baer’s jumper made it 63-59 with 1:08 to go and Iowa’s Dominique Uhl, ineffective for much of the season, scored 10 points and had eight rebounds.

Deshawn Freeman had 19 points and 13 rebounds for Rutgers (11-6, 0-4), who fell to 0-21 on the road since joining the Big Ten.

“We’re getting better,” Rutgers coach Steve Pikiell said. “We’ve played three out of four on the road against really good teams. We’ve strung together some good halves. (Sunday) we played 34 minutes of real good basketball.