Danny Sprinkle and his Washington Huskies didn’t have much fun on Saturday. Or, well, things started off great for the Washington men’s basketball team, but it really didn’t end well as the second half was a bit of a disaster for UW.
Iowa Hawkeyes fans, on the other hand, are probably pretty thrilled with the ridiculously impressive showing from the Iowa men’s basketball team in the second half of Saturday afternoon’s game. Like Payton Sandfort, for example. Iowa fans are probably really proud of how Sandfort performed as he put up 27 points in the game and scored 11 points in the last seven minutes.
The Hawkeyes managed to hit an absurd 71.4 percent from behind the three point line to absolutely punish the Huskies in the second half. Oh, and it probably helps that Iowa also had 23 free throw attempts in the second half. The Hawkeyes made 21 of those. There’s no way that didn’t help them come out on top of this one.
Washington Huskies lose despite strong first half lead over Iowa Hawkeyes
And this six-point loss to the Hawkeyes is despite the fact that Washington actually had a 12-point advantage over Iowa at one point in this game. But, well, first half leads don’t equate to wins in the Big Ten.
One area Iowa had a huge advantage over UW is scoring from the bench. Iowa managed to get 36 points from folks coming in off the bench. Washington, on the other hand, relied heavily upon its starters and only had 20 points off the bench.
That makes a difference here.
Now, it’s worth noting that DJ Davis had 17 points in under 20 minutes of action off the bench. But, outside of Davis, there just wasn’t much happening from the bench in this game.
Mekhi Mason led the way for UW with 19 points. After Mason (and Davis) came Great Osobor, who scored 15 points. And while that trio did well, it just wasn’t enough to keep up with the likes of the aforementioned Sandfort who scored 27 points.
Washington will now go on to face off against the Wisconsin Badgers in Madison on Tuesday. Here’s to hoping that Big Ten road trip goes a little better than this one did.