Iowa rallies for comfortable win over UMBC
For the first 12 minutes of the game against Maryland-Baltimore County, it looked like the Iowa basketball team was already on their holiday break. But, the Hawkeyes woke up and finished the first half strong and pulled away for a convincing 103-81 victory at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Iowa was led in scoring by Tony Perkins, who had 23 points. Freshman Brock Harding had his first career double-double with 10 points and 12 assists. Veterans Ben Krikke and Payton Sandfort also had double-doubles. Krikke with 17 points and 12 boards and Sandfort with 18 points and 10 rebounds.
The Hawkeye defense struggled to identify shooters early on in the game. UMBC knocked down four three point field goals early on to build a 12-8 lead at the first media timeout. Iowa finally pulled ahead 15-14, but then the Retrievers made a run of their own and after a jumper by Khydarius Smith they took their largest lead of the night, 26-21.
That’s when Iowa started to make their first half push. The Hawkeyes went on a 20-7 run to go up by ten, 43-33. Then the 7-1 run to end the half put Iowa up 50-36 at the break.
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From there, Iowa started to pull away. Perkins had a dunk and a layup to push the lead to 60-39. A Harding layup pushed the advantage to 24 and then the freshman point guard found Josh Dix for an easy score and Iowa was up 71-43 with just under 13 minutes left in the game.
Iowa did take the foot off the gas for a bit and the lead was cut to 18, but they Sandfort hit a three pointer and the lead never drifted under twenty the rest of the way. The Hawkeyes will now have some time off for the holidays. They will be back in action on December 29th when they host Northern Illinois. Game time is set for 6 p.m.
