No. 21 Wisconsin uses late surge to down Iowa

John Tonje scored a game-high 22 points Saturday and No. 21 Wisconsin rallied in the second half for a 74-63 Big Ten Conference road win over Iowa in Iowa City.

Tonje did his key damage late in the second half, scoring seven straight points to help Wisconsin flip a one-point deficit into a 65-59 lead with 5:44 to go. He added two free throws with 1:57 left that made it 70-63. John Blackwell hit a jumper on the next possession for a nine-point advantage that essentially cinched a season sweep.

Blackwell added 19 points for the Badgers (19-5, 9-4), who canned 12 of 35 3-point attempts and earned a 42-38 advantage on the glass. More importantly, they defended well in the second half, holding the explosive Hawkeyes to 24 points on 8-of-27 shooting (29.6 percent) from the field.

Pryce Sandfort scored 14 points off the bench for Iowa (13-10, 4-8), which made just 24 of 63 attempts from the field and was held 22 points under its per-game average. Josh Dix added 13 points and Drew Thelwell was good for 11 points.

Payton Sandfort, the Hawkeyes’ leading scorer with Owen Freeman (finger surgery) sidelined for the year, hit just 2 of 11 shots in 34 minutes and managed seven points, nine under his average (16.3).

The main storyline coming into this one was whether Iowa could produce a more competitive effort than it managed on Jan. 3 at Wisconsin, where it was blown out 116-85 as the Badgers canned a school-record 21 3-pointers.

In the first half, the answer was a definite yes. Neither team led by more than six points – the Hawkeyes opened up a 19-13 edge at the 11:23 mark – and there were eight ties and five lead changes.

Wisconsin again lit it up from 3-point range, making 7-of-17 in the first half, but was unusually sloppy with the ball. The Badgers committed six turnovers and Iowa took advantage with nine points. The Hawkeyes also got 11 points out of Pryce Sandfort, whose jumper with three seconds left staked the hosts to a 39-37 halftime lead.

–Field Level Media