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Image courtesy of The Gazette (Brian Ray)
Sunday was a career-high night for Hawkeye senior Matt Gatens, who was feeling it from everywhere on the court. Whether it was deep near the beak, at the top of the key or on the wing, no. 5 just couldn’t miss.
Going into Carver-Hawkeye, Tom Crean’s Hoosiers were on a three-game winning streak and may have let their swag cloud their fundamentals. The Indiana D allowed Iowa to create space, take shots and make those shots. Then, when Iowa took control early, the first adjustment that should’ve been made was figuring out how to shut down Gatens.
Instead of doing just that, they allowed Gatens to hit a ridiculously hot streak late in the second half, making four three-balls in a row…all within the span of about four minutes.
But the Iowa City native can’t take all the credit – after a sloppy loss at Penn State just three days earlier, Fran seemingly lit a fire under his super stud sophomore forward, Melsahn Basabe. On this night, Basabe played like a Hawkeye possessed, leading the “block party” with five monster Bs and 13 points. The Hawks’ strategy of pounding the glass and utilizing the press left Indiana unable to block or read the point with enough time to counter.
While there is almost no chance of the Hawks getting an invite to go dancing this time around, we’re guessing the 2013 tournament has black and gold written all over it.
Click here to get jacked about Iowa basketball: http://youtu.be/eA0x4zdXf78
© 2012, Kalea Yoshida. All rights reserved.
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