March 20, 2013
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IOWA CITY, Iowa — A 32-6 run spanning the final five minutes of the first half and first 10 minutes of the second half lifted the University of Iowa men’s basketball team to a 68-52 victory over Indiana State in the first round of the National Invitational Tournament in front of a sellout crowd of 15,400 fans on Mediacom Court inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Indiana State’s zone defense contributed to a slow Hawkeye start, as the Sycamores led 26-18 with five minutes to go in the first half. Iowa responded with a 13-4 run to take a 31-30 halftime lead before opening half two with a 19-4 spurt to build a 50-34 lead.
“We started running in transition,” said Marble, who finished with a game-high 24 points, his eighth 20-point game this season. “They amped their defense up, and we weren’t getting out in transition and putting pressure on their defense. We were trying to score in the half-court set every position.
“In the second half we got the shots we wanted and scored pretty much when we wanted to.”
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The Hawkeyes scored eight of the first 10 points of the second half over the first four minutes to build a 37-32 lead before a Marble dunk pushed the lead to seven. Indiana State was then whistled for a technical foul after having six players on the court, and junior Zach McCabe made both free throws to push the lead to 41-32.
After a layup by Justin Gant cut the deficit to 41-34, McCabe drained consecutive 3-pointers from the left wing to push Iowa’s lead to 47-34 and force an ISU timeout. Sophomore Josh Oglesby followed with a third triple from the left corner to make the score 50-34 and all but put the game away.
“Zach’s a guy I’m going to keep going to,” said UI head coach Fran McCaffery. “The great thing about him, before he made those 3s, he missed a couple. He’s going to shoot, have his hands and feet ready, going to fire and going to make them.”
Marble scored his 24 points on 7-of-15 shooting to go along with an 8-of-10 performance from the charity stripe. He also had six assists, five rebounds and four steals in 34 minutes of action. Sophomore Aaron White posted his fourth double-double, finishing with 11 points and a career-high 13 rebounds, and Basabe had nine points and eight rebounds.
“Dev really had to do a lot tonight, and he keeps getting better,” said McCaffery. “He’s playing as well as anybody in the country right now. He played with great confidence, and everyone is feeding off of that.”
The Hawkeyes shot 38.6 percent (22-of-57) from the field and were 6-of-19 (31.6 percent) from 3-point range. Iowa also made 18-of-26 free throw attempts. The Sycamores shot 38 percent (19-of-50) for the game and made 4-of-17 3-pointers. Iowa out-rebounded Indiana State, 42-27, and forced 16 turnovers.
Gant paced the Sycamores, finishing with 16 points on 6-of-14 shooting. ISU’s leading scorer, Jake Odum, had more turnovers than points (6-5) in the contest.
Indiana State jumped out to a 6-0 lead behind consecutive 3-pointers by R.J. Mahurin to open the game. The Hawkeyes then followed with 11-of-14 points to take an 11-9 advantage behind five points by Marble.
“We started out a little slow,” said White. “They hit two big 3s, and they were excited, but I think we answered it. In the second half we kind of blew it open with defensive intensity, rebounding and transition. Dev really scored the ball great.”
Indiana State followed with an 11-2 spurt to take a 21-13 lead at the 6:40 mark. Trailing 26-18 with 5:09 remaining in the first half, the Hawkeyes closed out the half on a 13-4 run to take a 31-30 lead into the break.
Senior Eric May opened the spurt with a 3-pointer before freshman Adam Woodbury followed with a short jumper to make the score 26-23. After an ISU layup, Marble followed with a jumper, and he connected with White on an alley-oop dunk to make the score 28-27.
After trading free throws, a Gabriel Olaseni-to-Marble-to-Olaseni alley oop dunk gave Iowa the one point advantage at the half. Iowa shot 39.3 percent (11-of-28) in the first half with two 3-point field goals, while Indiana State finished 11-of-26 (42.3 percent) from the floor. The Hawkeyes were plus nine (22-13) on the glass over the opening 20 minutes.
Courtesy of Stony Brook’s 71-58 road win at second-seeded Massachusetts, the Hawkeyes will host a second round NIT game Friday night at 8:30 p.m. (CT).
“It means a lot (to have another home game),” said Marble. “Going on the road is a very difficult thing to do in Division I this year. That’s a really good UMASS team (they beat). We have to get ready for Stony Brook and hopefully the fans will come out and support us like they did today.”