It wasn’t pretty, but it was Iowa basketball and a wins a win is a win is a win, so we’ll take Iowa’s 77-63 victory over Missouri-Kansas City and move on.
It more or less took 15 minutes for Iowa to really start playing in this one. The Hawkeyes were lackadaisical and unwilling to defend early on. We were knotted at 22 with 5 minutes left before the Hawkeyes started to use their size and talent advantage to pull away and make it a slightly comfortable 34-26 lead at half. UMKC point guard Xavier Bishop banked a three-pointer as time expired in the half to erase a double-digit lead—a lead that was surmounted thanks to five consecutive points off free throws.