Iowa nears the conclusion of its nonconference schedule before diving into the meat of Big Ten play, facing Bucknell on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa.
The Hawkeyes (9-2) make the short trek from their home in Iowa City to the state’s capital city for their penultimate out-of-league date. Iowa draws UMass Lowell on Dec. 29, then moves into the Big Ten gauntlet with the beginning of the new year.
In their latest outing, the Hawkeyes rebounded from a 66-62 loss to then-No. 4 Iowa State by routing Western Michigan 91-51 on Sunday. Iowa held the Broncos to 16 first-half points, marking the lowest single-half yield for a Hawkeyes team since 2015.
The defensive effort against Western Michigan lowered the Hawkeyes’ scoring allowance on the season to just 61.8 points per game, eighth fewest among all Division I programs.
“Am I pleased with some things? Yeah, there’s a lot to be pleased with: the toughness they’ve shown, the ability to transition (from transferring),” Hawkeyes coach Ben McCollum said in his Thursday press conference. “Then to block out the external noise, they’ve done a great job of that.”
Meanwhile, Bucknell (3-9) heads to Des Moines ranked No. 341 in the nation scoring just 66.1 points per game. The Bison shoot just 40.1% from the floor as a team and are averaging 13.5 turnovers a contest.
Despite its offensive struggles, Bucknell comes into the Saturday game off a defensively dominant win. The Bison held Rider to 34% shooting from the field and limited the Broncs to 16 points in the first half on the way to the 51-38 victory that snapped Bucknell’s nine-game skid.
“Your expectation level of one another must always remain the same. It has been a next man-up mentality,” Bucknell coach John Griffin III said via the school’s official athletic website. “We had players in positions they are not typically in, but their competitiveness and their connection have kept us in the right direction.”
The Bison’s defensive focus on Saturday begins with containing Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz, the only Hawkeye scoring in double figures per game. Stirtz is the catalyst to the Iowa offense, both in producing 17.5 points per game and dishing 4.9 assists an outing.
