Fran McCaffery explains Iowa's success over Indiana

The Iowa Hawkeyes picked up a significant victory on the road Tuesday night over Indiana. The Hawkeyes beat the Hoosiers 90-68, sweeping the season series. This is his fourth straight win over Indiana for Iowa head coach Fran McCaffrey. And after the game, McCaffery explained the secret to Iowa’s success over Indiana.

“I don’t know that it’s anything ingenious that I’ve done or anything that they haven’t done. Their record speaks for itself,” said McCaffery. “We got a couple of tough ones, close ones. Bohannon banks one in from 35 feet. Obviously, that was great coaching. And our guys come ready. I honestly believe that the credit needs to go to the players and how they respond. Two of those victories were in our place; one was in the tournament. So yeah, I think winning here that’s not easy.”

The last few contests between Iowa and Indiana have been knockdown drag-out fights. But on Tuesday, the Hawkeyes walked into Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall and dominated their Big Ten rival. Iowa won in several key statistical battles. The Hawkeyes outrebounded the Hoosiers 39-27 and outshot them from the three-point line making more threes (13) than the Hoosiers attempted (11).

McCaffery praises Iowa’s offense after scoring conference-high 47 first half points at Indiana

It was a sterling first half performance for Iowa on Tuesday night at Assembly Hall against Indiana. After 20 minutes, the Hawkeyes had scored 47 points — the highest first-half mark by a Big Ten team in conference play this season — and led the Hoosiers by 11.

Against a team generally capable of playing some good defense, Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery was complimentary of his squads offense at the break. He explained to ESPN sideline reporter Myron Medcalf that it’ll take another similar half to get the win.

“Well I thought we moved the ball well. You know you’re going to get a great effort defensively from them. They’re going to be in your space. You gotta be strong with the ball, you gotta move the ball and get a shot every time. Then get your defense back. They got two really special guys in [Jalen] Hood-Schifino and Trayce [Jackson-Davis], gotta watch them. But I thought, overall, our composure was really good,” McCaffery said.

With 15 points in the first half from Kris Murray and another 13 from Tony Perkins, the Iowa offense clicked along as McCaffery described. And while a similar scoring output in the second half would be ideal, McCaffery isn’t going to have his team sit back and find out.