Hawks beat Clemson, 67-61, in first NCAA Tournament win since 2021

The 9-seeded Iowa Hawkeyes (22-12) defeated the #8 Clemson Tigers (24-11) 67-61 to notch their first NCAA Tournament since 2021. It was a slog of a game, as neither team exceeded 41% shooting in the game. Bennett Stirtz led the Hawks with 16 points on 4/17 shooting in an uncharacteristically inefficient game. Kael Combs (15 points on 5/7) and Alvaro Folgueiras (14 on 3/8) joined Stirtz in double digits.

After struggling to find driving lanes in the first half (the Hawks were 1/4 on layup), the were able to crack the code on Clemson’s defense with 6/6 layups in the second. Attacking with more consistency allowed Iowa to get to the line, where 17/22 shooting in the second half helped put away the game.

The Hawks also took advantage of Clemson missing center Carter Welling and their similarly slow pace to crash the offensive boards. The Hawks had 15 which led to 16 second chance points and the 46.9% offensive rebounding percentage was Iowa’s highest since playing Bucknell in December.

Kael Combs was the bell cow during the first half with 11 points on 4/4 shooting. His scoring got started on Iowa’s first possession with a 3 pointer as the shot clock ticked inside 5, which was a regular occurrence in the half. Back to back threes by Combs and Alvaro Folgueiras stretched the lead to 18-6 about 7 minutes into the game.

Stirtz looked to score early and ended up with 8 points on 2/8 shooting but just 1/5 from 3. He had 2 of Iowa’s 3 assists in the half, despite some whip-around ball movement.

Defensively, Iowa withstood a barrage of attempts around the rim by Clemson and were just 3/6 on layups/dunks before the Hawks stretched the lead to double digits. At one point, the Tigers missed 6 straight shots but 5 of them came on one possession so Iowa wasn’t really able to stretch the lead further while they were cold.

They hit their second three pointer with 3:32 remaining in the frame and made two more to end the half with the Hawks up 32-25. Iowa turned Clemson over just 3 times, which allowed the game to stay on the rails for the Tigers.

One moment I noticed throughout the frame was a cutaway to Ben McCollum after Clemson called a timeout with 8:15 remaining. Iowa missed their next 5 straight shots after that which allowed the Tigers to tighten the margin.

Iowa opened the second half with a Stirtz 3 but didn’t score again until Stirtz’s next 3 about 6 minutes later. During that timeframe, Clemson was able to get the deficit back to 2 points at 35-33.

After Stirtz’s 3, McCollum called a timeout to help Iowa lock in defensively. Tate Sage, who got a couple first half minutes, made layups on back-to-back possessions to extend the lead back to 9 at 42-33. It felt like Sage’s presence really impacted this one as he was a willing off ball mover and drove with intent when handling the ball.

Folgueiras extended the lead with a layup on a broken-ish play. He continued the good vibes as he got another and-one, an assist on a Sage layup, and a pair of FTs as Iowa got the lead up to a game-high 14.

The offense dried up for Iowa after Cooper Koch hit three free throws and Clemson was able to close it to 5 on 3 straight 3 pointers.

After Cam Manyawu missed a pair of free throws, Clemson went hack-a-Shaq and he made just 1 of 2. Clemson wasn’t able to close the gap on the ensuing possession and Iowa’s assembly line to the free throw line continued (their only scoring between the 9:21 mark and the 0:56 mark was 12 free throws).

Clemson was finally able to string together a score-stop-score to close the gap to 61-57 and then McCollum put the ball in the hands of … Kael Combs?

The junior guard was able to get a straight line drive to sink a layup with 0:56 left and put the Hawks up 63-57. After Combs came up with a huge rebound while keeping the ball inbounds on the other end, Iowa was given the ball on replay review.

Folgueiras hit his free throws with 27 seconds left after Iowa burned plenty of clock breaking the Tigers’ press. A 3 with 19 seconds left gave Clemson put the game back in range at 65-60 but the Hawks were able to successfully inbound it and Stirtz sank a pair of free throws with 10 seconds left.

Hawks win!

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