Tarris Reed Jr. scores 19 points, leads Michigan to 90-80 road win at Iowa

Michigan Wolverines basketball was coming off three-straight losses, and Iowa had dropped its last two games, but the Maize and Blue came away with the 90-80 win at Carver-Hawkeye Arena early Sunday evening.

Michigan, which was short-handed in the back court without graduate guard Jaelin Llewellyn (knee), leaned on its front line, highlighted by a 19-point, 6-rebound performance by sophomore Tarris Reed Jr. Graduate forward Olivier Nkamhoua logged a double-double with 12 points and 10 boards, as well.

Here’s a recap of how the game unfolded.

First half

Both teams combined to begin the game shooting 0-of-7, before Iowa’s Tony Perkins hit a pull-up two pointer to open the scoring. Reed tied the game up with a layup — the Wolverines went with him quite a bit early on — before Patrick McCaffery, son of Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery, ripped off a personal 5-0 run. The Hawkeyes led, 7-2, at the under-16 media timeout. Michigan began 1-of-7 shooting from the field.

Out of the media timeout, senior forward Terrance Williams II hit a late-shot-clock triple from the top of the key to stop the bleeding. Reed got going with two-straight layups, including one put-back, tying the game at 9-9. Michigan took its first lead of the game with a pair of graduate forward Tray Jackson free throws to make it 11-10 with just over 13 minutes remaining in the half.

Redshirt sophomore forward Will Tschetter checked in and played some solid minutes midway through the first half. He had a nice finish at the rim after pivoting along the baseline. Williams hit his second three of the game to give Michigan a 16-13 edge with 11:36 remaining.

Reed continued his hot start. He had a rare 2-for-2 trip from the free throw line, before finishing a layup in transition off a feed from Tschetter. That gave Michigan a 22-17 advantage with under nine minutes until the break and Reed 10 points for the evening. It was 22-19 Maize and Blue at the under-eight media timeout. The Wolverines were 8-for-18 from the field at that juncture.

Michigan opened up a 27-21 lead, but Iowa surged back to make it 27-26 and the Wolverines’ possessions were clunky offensively. The Hawkeyes went ahead 29-28 with a pair of free throws by Perkins with 3:14 on the clock.

A triple from Tschetter sparked a bit of a Michigan run that gave the Wolverines a 35-33 lead at the break.

Michigan shot 40 percent from the field, but made 8 of its 9 free throw attempts, while Iowa connected on only 38 percent of its shots and 6 of its 8 free throws. The two big men, Reed for U-M and Ben Krikke, both led the way with 12 points.

Second half

Iowa forced a turnover on the first possession of the half, before Krikke got a layup to bring his point total up to 14 for the game and give Iowa the 37-35 lead. Michigan took it back with a Burnett transition three off a sophomore guard Dug McDaniel feed.

That started off a Michigan run that led to Iowa calling timeout with 16:37 to go. Burnett hit another three, before Nkamhoua tripled and then finished a transition lob dunk from McDaniel. That 11-0 spurt put Michigan ahead, 46-37.

McDaniel finally scored his first points of the game with a layup at 16:01. Michigan was up 50-40 at the 15:18 media timeout. The Wolverines were 6-of-10 shooting from the field, including 3-of-5 from long range, in the second half to that point. Iowa was 3-of-7 with a pair of turnovers.

Michigan was up 53-42 and then scored nine-straight points, thanks in part to a pair of Fran McCaffery technical fouls that cause his ejection at the 12:25 mark. After the Wolverines made seven-straight foul shots, they led 62-42, their largest advantage of the night.

The Wolverines committed a flurry of fouls that allowed Iowa to tighten the game, but Michigan kept answering with big shots after breaking the Iowa press, even if some of the slowed-down offensive possessions were a bit disjointed. McDaniel had a layup (68-52) and jumper (70-52), before flipping the ball up to Tschetter in transition for an easy layup (72-56). Michigan held a 72-56 lead at the 7:14 media timeout.

Michigan began to chew clock by slowing down its offensive possessions, but it hit a couple dagger threes that put things about out of reach for Iowa, one from Nkamahoua and one from Williams, his third of the evening. After a Nkamhoua turnaround two, it was 80-60 with under four minutes to go.

It wasn’t pretty at different points in the final four minutes, and Iowa made it a 12-point game after two-straight triples with under a minute to go, but Michigan closed things out even if the Hawkeyes diminished the deficit.