The Iowa men’s basketball team’s offense has revolved around guard Peter Jok this season. The senior is the Big Ten’s leading scorer (20.6 points per game) and directs a squad that starts four underclassmen.
But Saturday, with Maryland’s defense focused on Jok, guard Jordan Bohannon and forward Tyler Cook took over. The freshman duo combined for 45 points to help Iowa defeat the No. 24 Terps, 83-69, for Maryland’s first three-game losing streak since 2012, coach Mark Turgeon’s first year as head coach.
“We have a lot of good shooters,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “Teams have been locking in on Pete. They were working hard on Pete. They were trying to be physical in the post and sometimes we had some long possessions where we swung it. If you do that others have opportunities to make shots and step up.”
In Maryland’s 84-76 win over Iowa on Jan. 19, the Terps limited Jok to a team-high 14 points, but only two of his teammates also scored in double figures.
Jok scored 11 points Saturday with guard Kevin Huerter guarding him for most of the contest. But when the Terps double-teamed him, Jok found his open teammates.
Bohannon scored a career-high 24 points on 8-for-10 three-point shooting, while Cook scored 21 points and grabbed 10 rebounds. As a team, the Hawkeyes 62 percent from beyond the arc and scored 30 second-chance points three days after Maryland surrendered a season-high 89 points in a 14-point loss to Minnesota.
“We guard everybody,” Turgeon said. “I know when you look at the stats these last two games, you say, ‘Well, you don’t guard anybody coach.’ We did a good job on Jok, and the rest of them were terrific.”
Iowa got out to an early lead behind stellar long-range shooting, with Bohannon, who averages 9.2 points per game, knocking down four 3-pointers in the first half. Later in the frame, the Hawkeyes worked the ball into the paint. Cook scored nine points in the final eight minutes before halftime, at one point sticking his tongue out to the cameras after finishing an and-one layup.
The Terps continued to focus on Jok after the intermission, though he only scored three points in the period. Bohannon, meanwhile, drained three 3-pointers in the first five minutes of the period to give his team a 58-44 lead.
Still, Turgeon said Cook “was the difference” in Maryland’s fifth home defeat of the season. He excelled against Maryland’s frontcourt, which has struggled defending the paint all season. Its big-men rotation was cut to three players after forward Michal Cekovsky suffered a season-ending ankle fracture last week.
“He scored a lot of points in transition; he ran the floor and posted hard,” McCaffery said. “It wouldn’t matter if Cekovsky was on him, [Ivan] Bender or [Damonte] Dodd. We’re going to go to him. He’s our guy.”
With just under six minutes to play, Bohannon drained his eighth 3-pointer of the game with guard Melo Trimble in his face. Bohannon clapped when he got back on defense while his teammates on the bench stuck eight fingers in the air, representing the number of long balls he made on his career day. Fans at Xfinity Center, meanwhile, erupted with boos for the second straight game after watching their team’s defensive collapse.
“They have really good players,” Huerter said. “They had players get hot, and they stayed hot throughout the game. It was definitely their night.”
