After forcing a turnover with 0.8 seconds remaining in regulation after a
Zach McCabe basket, Iowa had one final opportunity to even the score. Roy Devyn Marble lobbed a perfect in-bounds pass from the sidelines just above the rim, where
Aaron White caught it and scored to send the game to overtime.
“I had multiple options on that inbounds pass,”
explained Marble. “I had Peter (Jok) going to the corner, I had Josh
(Oglesby) at the top after a screen, and I saw Josh’s man follow him so I
was able to find Aaron (White) on the lob.”
The Hawkeyes trailed by as many as five points
in the extra session, yet continued to fight to the end. Marble sank a
3-pointer with 90 seconds left to pull within three points (82-80).
After a pair of defensive stops,
Jarrod Uthoff drained a jumper with 18 seconds left to tie the
contest. Hyeres-Toulon scored in the final seconds to post the two-point
victory.
“It seemed like the game was over when they made a three with a minute left,” said coach
Fran McCaffery. “But we kept attacking, made couple shots,
forced some turnovers and of course made the shot that sent the game to
overtime with under a second to play. We made mistakes tonight and
tried to recover from those mistakes, and that’s how
you grow.”
Trailing by six with 30 seconds left in
regulation, McCabe drained a 3-pointer to pull within 70-67. After
Hyeres-Toulon split a pair of free throws, McCabe scored again with two
seconds left to make the score 71-69. Intense defensive
pressure on the in-bounds forced a turnover, which led to the
game-tying shot after a Hawkeye timeout.
Marble nearly posted a triple-double tonight,
scoring 18 points, grabbing nine rebounds and being credited with eight
assists. McCabe scored eight of his 11 points in the final 25 minutes,
while also clearing a game-high 10 rebounds
for a double-double. Starting frontcourt duo Gabriel Olaseni and Melsahn Basabe combined to score 26 points, bolstered by 12-of-18 (.667) shooting from the field, and nine rebounds.
Josh Oglesby contributed 10 points and dished out five assists.
“This will help us get better, especially when the season starts because we have already been in a battle,” Marble said.
Iowa will play its final exhibition game Tuesday against
Fos-Ouest at 7:30 p.m. local time (12:30 p.m. CT) before returning to the United States on Thursday.
[This story was written for Ron Maly by Matt Weitzel of Iowa's sports information staff ].