When Iowa hosts Western Michigan on Sunday in Iowa City, its goal is to play a more consistent 40 minutes.
The Hawkeyes are coming off a 66-62 loss Thursday night at No. 4 Iowa State. They owned a 13-point first half lead before the Cyclones rattled off 19 straight points to take a 10-point second half lead.
The difference was foul shooting, as Iowa State hit 17 of 23 while Iowa (8-2) had just five free throw attempts, making three.
“Obviously, a very physical game and they came out on top,” said first-year Hawkeyes coach Ben McCollum. “I was proud of our guys’ effort. … I didn’t think we came out of the half great. It was really difficult to recover from that stretch.”
Iowa has struggled to find rhythm on offense in three of its past four games, being held to 59 points in a win over Grand Canyon, 52 in its first loss at Michigan State and 62 on Thursday night. It did ring up 83 points in a Dec. 6 win over Maryland.
Senior point guard Bennett Stirtz leads the team with 17.9 points per game but struggled at Iowa State, managing only 10 points on 3-of-11 shooting.
While the Hawkeyes look for more consistency on offense, the Broncos (5-5) will attempt to build off an 83-73 win on Dec. 6 at SIU Edwardsville. Jalen Griffith contributed 28 points and 10 assists to lead the way.
Griffith, who didn’t play last season after transferring from Navarro (Texas) following a year at Jacksonville, is averaging a team-high 16.3 points and 4.6 assists per game. Florida International transfer Jayden Brewer is chipping in 13.9 points and a team-best 7.5 rebounds per game.
Western Michigan returned just three players from last season’s team, leading coach Dwayne Stephens to hit the transfer portal. He inked six from the portal in addition to four freshmen.
“The landscape of college basketball has changed for us,” he said, “The biggest thing we have been working on is to make sure the team chemistry is right.”
