Despite playing in front of their first sellout crowd at Carver-Hawkeye Arena since 2024, No. 25 Iowa basketball (18-7, 8-6 Big Ten) authored one of its most disappointing performances of the year against No. 12 Purdue (21-4, 11-3 Big Ten) on Saturday evening, as the Hawkeyes have now dropped two consecutive Big Ten games.
Following an ugly loss at Maryland on Wednesday, the loss against Purdue has sounded some alarms amongst fans with No. 8 Nebraska coming to town on Tuesday, Feb. 17. Until then, here are the biggest takeaways from the Hawkeyes’ home loss to Purdue:
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Bennett Stirtz, Tavion Banks need more help on offense
While Bennett Stirtz and Tavion Banks have been outstanding for Iowa this year, the Hawkeyes desperately need to find a reliable tertiary scoring option to have success against quality opponents down the home stretch of the season and potentially into the postseason.
While Stirtz finished with a game-high 19 points, along with Banks’ nine points, the Boilermakers‘ defense put a lid on those two for most of the night, which forced Iowa to find scoring elsewhere.
Given that Iowa’s offense is almost entirely reliant on the production of the senior duo, opponents will undoubtedly follow the same blueprint until the Hawkeyes can prove otherwise.
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Slow start dooms Hawkeyes again
Similar to the Feb. 11 loss at Maryland, Iowa could not find its offensive rhythm against Purdue, despite playing relatively well defensively in the opening portion of the first half.
Against a potent, efficient Boilermakers offense, the Hawkeyes needed to capitalize on their looks early and often to tap into the energy of the sold-out crowd. Unfortunately, Iowa’s defensive presence could not hold off Purdue’s offensive onslaught much longer, resulting in the Hawkeyes playing out of their game and taking shots out of necessity.
Poor situational rebounding
While Iowa actually outrebounded Purdue, 38-30, the Boilermakers had much better situational rebounding, which led to second- and third-chance opportunities offensively.
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Although both Iowa and Purdue finished with 53 shot attempts, the extra opportunities gained by the Boilermakers’ aggressive rebounding allowed them to hit critical shots to widen their lead at the start of the second half and eventually force the Hawkeyes into taking low-percentage shots.
With the six remaining games on Iowa’s Big Ten schedule featuring Nebraska twice (home and away), along with contests against a red-hot Wisconsin team and No. 2 Michigan, the Hawkeyes cannot afford to continue this downward trend as the Big Ten Tournament and potentially the NCAA Tournament near in the not-too-distant future.
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This article originally appeared on Hawkeyes Wire: Takeaways as Iowa basketball suffers blowout loss vs. Purdue
