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By RICK BROWN
hawkeyesports.com
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Iowa’s string of last-second magic came to a heartbreaking end Tuesday on Mediacom Court inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Jordan Bohannon missed a pressured double-clutch 3-pointer, and Isaiah Moss’s rebound attempt bounced off the rim, giving Maryland a 66-65 victory in a duel of top 25 Big Ten teams.
“It felt good,” Moss said. “I thought it was going in. It wasn’t meant to be.”
In its previous two games, Iowa beat Northwestern and Rutgers on late 3-pointers by Bohannon and Joe Wieskamp. But this time, it was Bruno Fernando’s rebound basket off an Anthony Cowan miss with 7.6 seconds remaining that proved to be the winning hoop.
Maryland head coach Mark Turgeon figured Bohannon would get the last shot.
“Yeah, the kid has made some incredible shots,” Turgeon said. “I was just hoping his luck ran out. I wouldn’t say luck. He’s a big-time shooter.”
Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery, whose team struggled to find its shooting tough until the stretch run, said there were several options on the last possession.
“I thought he (Bohannon) felt like he was free enough to pull,” McCaffery said. “They doubled him. He did a pretty good job of freeing himself up.”
Bohannon said Iowa ran a play it has had in the playbook since he has been in the program.
“I thought I got hit on the arm (by Cowan),” Bohannon said. “I thought Isaiah got fouled, too, but there is not much we can do about it.”
The loss ended Iowa’s four-game winning streak. The Hawkeyes fell to 9-6 in the Big Ten, 20-6 overall.
Bohannon led the Hawkeyes with 14 points, but made just 2-of-11 shots from the field.
“I think he’s facing teams, not just this team, but teams that are going to focus on him,” McCaffery said. “They’re going to face guard him, chase him, bang him, and they’ll trap him. It’s what he has to get used to.”
Iowa’s 19 field goals matched a season low, and its 65 points were a season low. The Hawkeyes shot just 32.8 percent from the field, also matching a season low.
Both teams started the game in a shooting funk, combining to miss the first 13 3-point attempts. The Terps recovered to make 12 of their last 20.
Maryland’s last six field goals of the game were 3-pointers, and it took a 27-23 lead into halftime. Iowa made just two first-half triples in 10 attempts, on back-to-back possessions. Moss had the second, at the 5:44 mark, but the Hawkeyes didn’t make another field goal the rest of the way and missed the front end of two straight one-and-one opportunities.
“We had great looks, especially in the first half,” Moss said. “We just weren’t hitting them.”
Defense and rebounding kept Iowa in the game until shots started falling down the stretch. Nicholas Baer’s 3-pointer with 2:37 remaining gave Iowa its first lead of the second half, 61-60.
Five more led changes came after that, the last on Fernando’s tip-in.
QUOTING COACH FRAN MCCAFFERY
“Offensively, it was a struggle for us all night. We never got where we wanted to, but we made enough shots to hang in. They got it to 11 a couple of times. We would get it back. It never got away from us.”
WORTH NOTING
- Maryland entered the game with a plus 10 advantage on the boards. Iowa out-rebounded the Terps, 40-34. That included 18 offensive rebounds and a 16-12 edge in second-chance points. Moss led the way with 10 rebounds.
- Leading scorer Tyler Cook was limited to just four field-goal attempts and had a season-low six points.
- Iowa’s last four games have been decided by five points or less.
ON THE HORIZON
Iowa stays home and hosts Indiana at 8:15 p.m. (CT) Friday on Mediacom Court inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Click HERE to get your tickets. The Hawkeyes won at Indiana on Feb. 7, 77-72. Iowa will be looking for its first regular-season sweep of the Hoosiers since the 2010-11 season.
