Iowa uses huge second-half rally to upset Purdue 83-78
IOWA CITY, Iowa -- Purdue knew the Hawkeyes would be looking for payback after it blasted Iowa in the Big Ten opener.
The Hawkeyes got back at the Boilermakers by beating them at their own game.
Peter Jok scored 29 points with eight assists and six rebounds and Iowa rallied from a nine-point halftime deficit to beat No. 17 Purdue 83-78 on Thursday night.
"When you go through what we went through down there, you have to learn from it," Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said of his young team's 89-67 loss on Dec. 28. "You grow, and you figure it out."
Freshman Tyler Cook had 16 points for the Hawkeyes (11-7, 3-2), who beat a ranked team at home for the second time this season -- this time by outrebounding the bigger Boilermakers 35-28 and shooting 67 percent in the second half.
"(Jok) made some tough shots. Maybe not for him, but tough for everyone else," Purdue coach Matt Painter said of Jok, who was 11 of 19 from the field. "I thought we executed. We just didn't finish."
Caleb Swanigan, who led Purdue (14-4, 3-2) with 17 points, missed a layup in front of the rim with 13.8 seconds left and the Boilermakers down 79-78. Cordell Pemsl missed a subsequent free throw, but Iowa got the ball back after a lengthy review and Jordan Bohannon hit two from the line.
Dakota Mathias missed a contested three with four seconds left for Purdue, which lost for the first time this season to a team not in this week's Top 25.
"We got good looks. We didn't execute, and we put ourselves in a tough position," Painter said of the Boilermakers down the stretch.
Isaac Haas scored 13 points with six rebounds for the Boilermakers. Swanigan, the nation's leading rebounder entering play, had eight -- five below his average.
"They wanted a little bit of revenge on their home court," Haas said. "They got it."
THE BIG PICTURE
Purdue: The Boilermakers hit 21 of 25 free throws. But they lost because they let Iowa shoot 57 percent from the field and score 40 points in the paint. This one might come back to hurt Purdue if the Big Ten race gets tight, as it usually does, down the stretch.
Iowa: The Hawkeyes showed they can hang with anyone in the Big Ten if they play well, despite starting four freshmen. Iowa likely won't push the leaders in the league race, but .500 is now a possibility.
POLL IMPLICATIONS
Purdue will likely drop a few spots. But the Hawkeyes are 10-2 at home -- including wins over Michigan and Iowa State -- and were still smarting from that blowout at Purdue two weeks ago.
A TUSSLE WITH MUSCLE
Pemsl got into a loose ball tussle with Hass, who is 7-foot-2, which sent both players tumbling to the court. But when Pemsl got up, he got a standing ovation from a crowd happy to see him fight so hard for the ball. Haas took another Hawkeye, Ryan Kriener, to the ground in the second half -- and it was Pemsl who helped Haas up.
BALLING OUT
One of the most entertaining sequences of this entertaining matchup came midway through the second half. Bohannon hit a 3 to give Iowa the lead. Ryan Cline answered with a 3 -- and Bohannon went right down the court and buried another one. Cline answered back with another 3, the fourth between the two in just 62 seconds. That was indicative of a game with 20 lead changes.
HE SAID IT
"You can't put yourself in a tough spot on the road. You've got to separate yourself and not (have it) come down to those situations," Painter said. Iowa was 0 of 5 from the line in the first half.
UP NEXT
Purdue will have the weekend off before hosting Illinois on Tuesday.
Iowa will play at Northwestern on Sunday.
