Iowa offense ready to excel against New Hampshire

Field Level Media|published: Sun 29th December, 19:42 2024

Iowa Hawkeyes guard Drew Thelwell (3) brings the ball up court against the New Orleans Privateers Sunday, Dec. 15, 2024 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa.

For Iowa, it's a chance to tune up going into the bulk of its Big Ten Conference schedule. For New Hampshire, it's an opportunity to collect a nice paycheck and perhaps even pull off a memorable upset.

The Hawkeyes and Wildcats will finish their nonconference schedules Monday night when they meet in Iowa City.

Iowa (9-3) last played on Dec. 21, erasing an 11-point second-half deficit to outgun Utah 95-88 in Sioux Falls, S.D. Payton Sandfort scored a season-high 24 points and added eight rebounds for the Hawkeyes, while Owen Freeman added 16 despite running into foul trouble.

Hawkeyes coach Fran McCaffery praised fifth-year senior Drew Thelwell, Iowa's sixth-leading scorer, who matched his season high with 15 points.

"The energy in the building was phenomenal. Drew was right in the middle of that," McCaffery said. "His defense and drawing six fouls, those are stats that are critical to a team's ability to win. Get to the bonus, get to the double bonus. We do that by driving the ball and drawing fouls and that's what we did."

Freeman is averaging a team-high 17.1 points and shooting 66.1 percent from the field, while Sandfort adds 16.7 ppg. Iowa has its usual high-powered attack, ranking seventh in Division I in scoring at 87.8 ppg and canning 50.2 percent from the field.

The Hawkeyes could add more gaudy offensive numbers against New Hampshire (2-12), which has lost six straight games, including a 90-83 decision on Dec. 22 at Stonehill. The Wildcats have experienced trouble defensively, allowing opponents to sink 45.2 percent of their field goal attempts and score 76.5 ppg.

Coming off a successful 2023-24 campaign that saw the Wildcats go 16-15 and win a game in the America East Conference tournament, New Hampshire returned just three players and had to replace AEC Player of the Year Clarence Daniels and his 19.4 ppg.

It hasn't gone to the plan of second-year coach Nathan Davis, but he's still hopeful his team can figure things out in conference play.

"We've improved across the board as far as our talent level," he said this summer. "I like our pieces."

This is the first meeting between the Wildcats and Hawkeyes.

--Field Level Media