“Eric had a nice dunk. It’s kind of nice to see him smile on the floor again, isn’t it?” said coach Fran McCaffery.
Photo credit: Darren Miller
IOWA CITY – Despite a sloppy performance, the Iowa Hawkeye men’s basketball team crushed Coppin State 80-50 Saturday in front of 13,060 at Carver Hawkeye Arena.
Iowa committed 20 turnovers and was 0-17 from three point range but still shot nearly 50% from the field.
“You know, 20 turnovers, 0-17. You don’t expect to win by 30,” said head coach Fran McCaffery. “But I thought our defensive effort and concentration early set the tone. We really got after them with our press. We did some stuff aggressively at half court.”
Iowa improves to 11-2 this season and is on a six-game win streak for the first time since December of 2004.
Both teams were turnover-prone in the opening minutes of the game, but Iowa too a commanding 40-14 lead into halftime. Coppin State’s 14 first-half points are the fewest by an Iowa opponent in Coach Fran McCaffery’s tenure.
Aaron white lead three Hawkeyes in double figures with 20 points, while no Coppin State player scored more than 9 points. White has scored at least 20 points in three games, and has scored in double figures in 9 of 13 games this season.
Gabriel Olaseni had a career-high 14 points for Iowa, including a couple of highlight-reel dunks, while Zach McCabe had a season-high 8 rebounds and Anthony Clemmons finished with a career-high 9 assists..
Iowa improves to 21-0 in the last three years when holding opponents to fewer than 60 points. Iowa also improves to 16-2 when scoring at least 80 points in the past three years.
Iowa gets a break before opening Big Ten play at home against highly-ranked Indiana.
