Iowa made an incredible comeback on Saturday against Michigan State.
After successive ugly road losses, Iowa’s affairs looked bleak again. The Hawks trailed MSU 91-78 with just 1:34 left in regulation.
At that point, Iowa had no choice but to start raising triples. For a team that had scored 6-for-52 from long range in the previous two games, this didn’t seem like a recipe for a comeback.
However, this time, the shots rained down with incredible speed. The Hawks made six of their last nine three-point attempts in the last 90 seconds of regulation to miraculously force overtime even as Michigan State made the majority of their free throws.
The home crowd went wild and Iowa beat MSU 11-5 in overtime for an incredible 112-106 victory.
It was a wild turn of events.
Michigan State had a double-digit lead in the last minute
MSU was leading by 10 points with 48 seconds left in the game, but simply couldn’t stop the defense.
Iowa’s Connor McCaffery made a triple shot in the 39th second to give MSU a 96-89 lead. And after a forced transition, Chris Murray continued his trio at the 30-second mark, cutting MSU’s lead to 96-92.
After a pair of free throws from MSU’s AJ Hoggard, Patrick McCaffery hit one from the top of the arc to make it 98-95 with 20 seconds left. Iowa still fouled and Hoggard sank two more to make it 100-95.
In the subsequent possession, Connor McCaffrey hit another ball to cut MSU’s lead to 100–98 with 10 seconds left. MSU subsequently passed the ball to Hoggard again. However, this time he split free throws.
MSU led 101-98 and the ball was back in Iowa’s hands. This set the stage for Payton Sandforth to send the game into overtime.
Looks like Michigan State was trying to foul to put Iowa on the line and avoid another three. Instead, the Spartans messed up the defensive switch by allowing Connor McCaffery to dribble the ball to Sandforth.
Sandforth, of course, drilled it.
From there, Iowa was in complete control of the extra session and was able to emerge victorious.
Michigan State reached 99.8% on ESPN’s last-minute win rate, but Iowa was able to secure a comeback for the ages.
Murray led Iowa with 26 points and eight rebounds. He was one of five double-figure players from Iowa. Tony Perkins scored 24 points, including two clutch misses in overtime. Sandforth had 22 players off the bench, including 6 of 10 from downtown.
With this win, Iowa snapped a two-game losing streak and improved their record to 18–11 overall and 10–8 in the Big Ten game. MSU fell to 17-11 (9-8 big ten).
Fran McCaffery’s quirky look with an official face
Iowa Head Coach Fran McCaffery is notorious for his temper with officials.
And in the early stages of his team’s miraculous comeback, McCaffrey gave a strange stare to one of the game’s referees.
McCaffrey had already received a technical foul with just over two minutes left in normal time. About 30 seconds into the timeout, McCaffrey took a different approach.
He just stared at Kelly Pfeiffer for a good 15 seconds. He even took a step towards him before one of his assistants pulled him back towards the crowd of the team. There was no exchange of words.
Perhaps it was some strange scare tactic. Whatever it was, he may have managed to set fire to his team on the last leg of the journey.
Brutal blow for Michigan State players
If you had money for the state of Michigan in this game, you might never experience the worst hit.
Iowa opened as a 4.5-point favorite and was quickly promoted to 5.5-point favorite. This means that if you bet Michigan State +5.5, you will win your bet if MSU wins or loses the game by five points or less.
Usually when a 5.5 underdog wins by 13 points with 94 seconds left in normal time, you’re in a pretty good spot.
And even as the game went into overtime, the MSU players had some semblance of hope, despite all the momentum on the Iowa side.
Overtime is rarely the friend of the underdog bettor, and this has proven to be the case again. Perkins hit two free throws with 19 seconds left in overtime and Iowa went up 112–106. It was the first time Iowa had a six-point lead after the 8:25 mark in the first half.
In the subsequent possession, MSU’s Malik Hall picked up a controversial three and missed. Iowa got the rebound to take the win 112-106, closing the gap by half a point.
Cruel.
Source: sports.yahoo.com
