IOWA CITY — As he described the performance Iowa basketball had against Rutgers on Jan. 20, Ben McCollum dropped his head and let out a groan.
McCollum managed to deliver a perfect encapsulation of the game without saying any words at all.
Take your pick of adjectives that could replace McCollum’s brief wail: Ugly, underwhelming, unpleasant, unimpressive. Any of those would work.
Rutgers, which entered the day having lost nine of its last 14 games, tested Iowa at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The Scarlet Knights, a double-digit underdog, led for more than 13 minutes in a game that, at least to some, was surprisingly competitive.
It was not Iowa’s best basketball of the season. Far from it. But there’s something to be said about the fact that the Hawkeyes still managed to win the game.
For Iowa, there’s no such thing as a bad Big Ten win, nor should the Hawkeyes apologize anytime they add to the win column the remainder of the season.
“You do have to win games when you don’t play your best,” McCollum said after Iowa’s 68-62 victory. “This is just one of those days you didn’t play your best and you win it. That’s important. We’ve won a lot of championships. Not here, but in my past and we always have games like this where it’s just like…”
McCollum bowed his head and let out a groan.
“The team you’re supposed to beat by whatever, you can’t,” McCollum continued. “And then another team you’re supposed to lose by five and then you beat them by 20. It’s just like the weirdest things when you’re in the season. But that’s basketball.”
Notably, Iowa managed to pull out the win without Bennett Stirtz playing his best.
After a 27-point outburst in the win over Indiana, Stirtz had to work for his 20 points against Rutgers. He was just 8-of-21 from the field and 0-of-6 from deep while committing a season-high five turnovers.
It’s not like Iowa has gotten an excess of rest recently, either. Rutgers was Iowa’s third game in the last seven days. The Hawkeyes were just coming off back-to-back road games in some of college basketball’s most hostile environments — Purdue and Indiana.
Leading up to the matchup with Rutgers, McCollum warned about how records in this demanding league can be deceiving. Just recently, he was watching a game between Penn State and Maryland, which were each 0-6 in the Big Ten at the time.
“0-6 Big Ten team is a lot different than an 0-6 other league team,” McCollum said the day before Iowa played Rutgers. “Those teams are pretty good. And you’re just like, ‘Whoa, those are guys that haven’t won in the league?’ Those guys are pretty good.”
Rutgers, which entered the matchup with Iowa 9-9 and 2-5 in the Big Ten, fell into a similar basket.
Credit to the Scarlet Knights, who, under the direction of head coach Steve Pikiell, lived up to their reputation of a tough and gritty style. Rutgers outrebounded Iowa 31-24. It also outshot Iowa by eight free throw attempts in what continues to be a relevant storyline this season.
The Hawkeyes didn’t look like the version of themselves that had just taken Purdue down to the wire and beat Indiana by 17 in its own building.
“You can feel it,” McCollum said. “Like you can feel it in the crowd. You can feel it on the bench. You can just feel it. It’s like, ‘Uh, oh, we’re not totally good right now.’ And you can feel it in the gym. You can just feel it. Toughness is kind of feeling that, and then still being able to win the game. Still being able to (be) like, ‘OK, we’ve just got to do enough to win this thing.’”
Iowa can thank Tate Sage for playing a key role in that. The freshman poured in a career-high 17 points on an ultra-efficient 5-of-7 from the field, 4-of-6 from deep and 3-of-4 from the free throw line. Meanwhile, Isaia Howard made important effort plays and led the Hawkeyes in rebounds with eight.
Consider Iowa more susceptible to this type of letdown than a program with a coach who has been in place for much longer. It might be easy to forget because of how well they’ve played this season, but the Hawkeyes have a roster made up mostly of guys who had not played at the power conference level before. On top of that, it has a head coach who is in his first season in the Big Ten and just his second in Division I.
A loss to Rutgers would have been very disappointing, but growing pains are just part of the process of laying the foundation of a program.
There were certainly growing pains against Rutgers. But to Iowa’s credit, that didn’t include a loss.
“We know it’s not going to be our best day, but we can’t let it snowball and make us so depressed that we can’t win the game,” McCollum said. “Because a lot of teams would just lose that game. It’s just like, ‘Oh, we’re just going to lose because we didn’t play well. We’re just going to lose.’ We won it. You’ve got to do those things.”
Follow Tyler Tachman on X @Tyler_T15, contact via email at ttachman@gannett.com
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: No such thing as bad Big Ten win for Iowa basketball
Reporting by Tyler Tachman, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
