Iowa presses past Rider
The depth and talent of the Iowa basketball team proved to be too much for Rider on Tuesday evening. Iowa used a 12-2 run in the middle of the first half to open up a significant lead and roll to a 83-58 win over the Broncs at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
The Hawkeyes were led in scoring by Payton Sandfort with 22 and Owen Freeman chipped in with 19. Iowa moves to 5-0 on the season and will travel to Kansas City on Friday to face Utah State in a neutral site game.
Iowa jumped out early to a 4-0 lead following a steal and layup by Brock Harding. The lead grew to 13-6 after a pair of free throws from Ladji Dembele, but Zion Cruz pulled Rider within three after a step back jumper to make it 13-10.
That was the moment when the Hawkeyes put their foot on the gas and went on a quick 12-2 run that opened up their lead. Payton Sandfort scored seven of the twelve points in that stretch, capping the run with a layup to make the score 25-12 with just over eight minutes left in the first half.
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The lead reached 15 after another bucket from Sandfort. From that point on in the first half, Rider hung around, cutting the lead to ten at one point before landing at 40-26 to end the first half.
Iowa pushed the lead to 20 in the first three minutes of the second half after a triple from Sandfort to make the score 48-28. Rider would cut into the lead, but it never got tighter than 16 before Iowa put their foot on the gas one more time midway through the second half.
Led by contributions from Seydou Traore and Drew Thelwell, who scored back to back buckets, Iowa pushed the lead to 63-40. A driving layup from Traore gave Iowa a 25 point edge with 8:24 left in the game. Sanfort pushed the margin to 26 with 5:18 left after a second chance basket and Carter Kingsbury banked in a three to give Iowa an 82-56 lead in the final minutes.
