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The Ben McCollum era officially has its first signature win at Iowa.
Iowa’s defense was tremendous all Tuesday night, and, in its 57-52 win, held Nebraska to 27 points below its season average.
The upset win is a big momentum boost for a Hawkeyes team looking to make the NCAA tournament.
“Yeah, we got punked (against Purdue), and we took that to heart so,” said Bennett Stirtz, an Iowa senior guard. “We practiced it a lot and we gave energy. We cared about it more, and that’s what we did.”
“It’s awesome to see a packed student section, packed Carver but maybe a couple games last year, Iowa State and a couple other top-10 games, but we need that consistently,” said Cooper Koch, an Iowa redshirt freshman forward. “We need that for whoever comes here, whether they be top 10 or last in the Big Ten. It creates a huge home court advantage. We’ve been working for wins like this. This is why I came back to Iowa, to get wins like this, and it’s going to keep the fanbase coming back, and that’s what we needed.”
“First of all give credit to Iowa. I thought they really got underneath us,” said Fred Hoiberg, Nebraska men’s basketball’s head coach. “Their physicality overwhelmed us. You look at the first half, and it was 19-6 on the glass, and we are down five points. We were still within two possessions and, you know, listen, when they take away passes like that someone has to put the ball on the deck and make a play. The few shots that we did get we didn’t unfortunately knock them down.”
“I’m just glad that our guys flipped it. We had two games of just not us. Ya know, I came in and I challenged them, I challenged them in pregame, and they rose to the occasion, and they fought,” McCollum said. “It didn’t go our way. Like, our offense was completely inept, but we just battled and hung on and got enough stops to be able to get the win. This is why the big ten is so special. It’s all the fans, all the everything that goes into it – the coaching, the teams, all those things. Ya know the win is obviously great, but even more importantly how they competed. That’s a big thing to me, and I thought they were awesome.”
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