Payton Sandfort records first Iowa men's basketball triple-double ever, credits Caitlin Clark

There’s been a lot of basketball history made in the state of Iowa this season, and junior forward Payton Sandfort wasted little time chasing a bit more on Tuesday night in a game against Penn State.

Sandfort quickly began racking up the stats in the first half, dishing out a whopping eight assists to put himself in range of a double-double. Potentially even the much rarer triple double.

But he wasn’t super clued into what was going on until late in the game.

“No, I didn’t really know it until, I thought I was closer to double-double because I told one of our coaches I was going to get 10 rebounds before the game,” Sandfort said. “Then he’s like, ‘Hey, one more rebound.’ I’m like, ‘All right, I’ve got you.’ He’s like, ‘No. Get one more rebound.'”

As the results kept stacking up, Sandfort ticked closer and closer to a triple-double with points, rebounds and assists. Better: Nobody in school history had ever recorded a triple-double at Iowa.

Late in the game, Payton Sandfort hit his marks. He ended the game with 26 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists.

He beamed from ear to ear in a post-game press conference when discussing his accomplishment.

“Pretty good,” Sandfort said of how he was feeling. “I’m glad to be able to do something; it’s crazy no other Hawkeye has done it. I mean I see Caitlin (Clark) do it every day, but it takes some of the legitimacy of it. But yeah, I’m pretty proud. Being from the state it’s a pretty special thing to be the first one.”

The junior forward was asked after the game which of the three statistics used to record his double-double he was most proud of. Sandfort leaned toward the scoring.

His 26 points matched a career high that he had hit three other times.

“Honestly I’ve never shot more than probably 10 free throws in a game in my life,” Payton Sandfort said. “But I think I shot 19. That was pretty cool. But I mean the assists, that was just Josh Dix, that was easy. I just was throwing him the ball and he made everything.”

Dix poured in 18 points in the first half as Sandfort chipped in his eight first-half assists. Iowa led pretty much from start to finish on Penn State, eventually closing out a 90-81 win.

And for the fans in Iowa City, they got to see a little bit of history on Tuesday night.