Northwestern suffers first Big Ten loss of the season at Iowa

It's been a banner year so far for Big Ten men's basketball, with a conference-record nine teams ranked nationally in the Top 25.

On Tuesday night, part of that muscle was on display as No. 19 Northwestern traveled to Iowa City to take on No. 10 Iowa in the day's only game in the nation that pitted two ranked teams.

Northwestern, the hottest and most surprising team in college basketball, couldn't keep the magic going and fell 87-72 to the Hawkeyes for its first Big Ten loss of the season.

The Wildcats, who made their season debut in the AP Poll this week, have been in history-making mode lately.

This is Northwestern's first national ranking since 2017 and the highest a Northwestern team has ranked in the poll this late in the season since 1969.

Heading into Iowa City, the Wildcats, who have made a dramatic turnaround since their 3-17 showing in Big Ten play last year, sat atop the Big Ten standings, off to a 6-1 start overall and a 3-0 start in the Big Ten for the first time since the 1967-68 season.

"It's certainly disappointing to lose tonight. Our guys were anxious and excited for this game," said Northwestern coach Chris Collins said, whose team was playing its fourth game in 10 days with two road trips. "(But) 3-1 in this four-game stretch. If you would have asked me about that before we came into this four-game gauntlet, if you told me I was going to come out 3-1, I would have been very happy. But obviously, when you're 3-0, you want to get greedy and try to get the fourth one. But Iowa is a really good team. They beat us tonight. We'll learn from it."

The conference wins for Northwestern thus far have been legit, with two of Northwestern's three Big Ten triumphs coming against ranked teams, including No. 23 Ohio State and No. 4 Michigan State.

Against Iowa, Northwestern shot the ball well, hovering around the 50 percent mark for much of the game, while keeping Luka Garza, the nation's leading scorer at 28.8 points per game, relatively in check. Garza, a 6-foot-11 center, had just 10 points midway through the second half. He finished with 18 points.

But the Hawkeyes, who went on a 8-0 run late in the second half to pull away, used a size advantage and rebounding muscle to punish Northwestern on the boards.

Iowa outrebounded Northwestern 36-32, rolled up 10 offensive rebounds, had 13 second-chance points and outscored Northwestern 24-18 in points in the paint.

Iowa is the No. 1 offensive-rebounding team in the Big Ten at 14.9 offensive rebounds per game.

Northwestern, the second-best 3-point shooting team in the Big Ten at 42 percent, drained an impressive 11 3-pointers but also allowed the Hawkeyes to hit 11 3-pointers of their own.

A late technical called on Northwestern also helped to swing the game in Iowa's favor. Iowa had just a 5-point lead at the time and the technical was a 4-point swing.

Guard Jordan Bohannon topped four Hawkeyes in double-figures with 24 points, including a 6-of-9 mark from 3-point range.

Pete Nance led Northwestern (6-2, 3-1) with 21 points, draining 3-of-4 3-pointers.

The Wildcats will get another crack at a Top 25 opponent in their next game. They will be visiting No. 16 Michigan on Sunday (6:30 p.m., BTN).

Iowa (8-2, 2-1) is next at No. 14 Rutgers, at 1 p.m. on Saturday.