Michigan basketball collapses late on Jett Howard's career night, loses to Iowa in OT, 93-84

IOWA CITY, Iowa — In a season full of narrow misses and tough losses, Thursday night may be the biggest blow of the year for the Wolverines.

Freshman Jett Howard scored a career-high 34 points but it wasn't enough as Michigan basketball lost to Iowa, 93-84, in overtime at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Michigan (9-7, 3-2 Big Ten) led by seven with less than two minutes to play and by four with less than 30 seconds in regulation after Kobe Bufkin's jumper from the elbow. But on the ensuing possession, Bufkin fouled Payton Sandfort on a 3-pointer from the top of the key, who got the shot to drop and made the free throw to tie the score with 20.2 seconds to play.

"A lack of defense on our part, Sandfort getting too many open looks," said Michigan coach Juwan Howard after the game of what went wrong. "Fouls down the stretch, and offensive rebound and-1, a 3-pointer down the stretch, a four-point play; those possessions can never happen.

"Unfortunately, we did not do a good job defending, especially the last four minutes of the ball game."

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Michigan freshman point guard Dug McDaniel's floater as the second half expired did not go in, forcing the extra five minutes.

From there, it was all Hawkeyes (11-6, 3-3 Big Ten), who scored the first eight points of overtime before Terrance Williams II hit a fadeaway with 1:39 to play. But Iowa would get an offensive rebound on the next possession (its 14th of the night) and ice the game away from the free-throw line as the Hawkeyes finished the final 7:18 of the game on a 23-6 run.

"The first two minutes (of overtime), we didn't look like we had any confidence, I will say that," Howard said. "It's a learning experience for them."

Sandfort had 26 points and six rebounds, and Kris Murray led the Hawkeyes with 27 points and eight rebounds, while Filip Rebraca added a double-double with 12 points and 12 rebounds.

Cool your Jetts

Howard tied his father and coach's career-high at U-M by making 12 of 22 from the field and going 7-for-13 from the 3-point line as Michigan led for nearly 34 minutes of regulation.

After Iowa took its first lead in the second half, he took scored 10 straight midway through the period; a long ball form the corner, a fadeaway in the lane, a leaning 3-pointer from the top of the key and a slashing layup on the left side of the court as part of a 13-2 run to put U-M up, 65-55, with 10:56 to play.

"He was very aggressive out there, allowed the game to come to him like he always does," Howard said. "We need him out there on the floor because the guy's a gamer. He knows how to play, he's going to be aggressive, make the right plays and that's what he did tonight."

However Jett said afterwards he "wasn't clutch" after he scored just three points in the final 16 minutes play and missed his final four shots of the night.

Iowa would answer with seven straight of its own, but then freshman Dug McDaniel and Will Tschetter made consecutive buckets (the latter was called a goal-tend on Iowa when the replay didn't appear to show one) to make it 69-62. Iowa would score five straight before McDaniel buried a 3-pointer to again extend Michigan's lead to five.

After Iowa cut the lead to two, McDaniel hit a 3-pointer with 3:09 to play to make it 75-70 and held his finger to his mouth as he silenced the crowd. A Hunter Dickinson tip-in with 2:18 left made it a seven-point game before Iowa closed regulation on a 9-2 run.

"We have to be more disciplined down the stretch and we have to be more clutch at the end of the day," said Jett. "There's no reason they should stop us for that amount of time down the stretch, because I feel like we're the better team."

Sandfort made a baseline jumper to open overtime, then converted a three-point play after Murray split a pair of free throws to make it a six-point game and never look back.

Michigan, which generally takes good care of the ball, had 13 turnovers, leading to 20 Iowa points. The Wolverines also allowed 14 offensive rebounds, which resulted in 10 second-chance points.

"We gave them extra possessions because we didn't do a good job putting a body on guys," Howard said. "We talked about it, watched it on film for three straight damn days and did not have it carry over."

Dickinson had his fourth double-double of the season with 12 points and 13 rebounds, while McDaniel added 12 points, seven assists and six rebounds, Bufkin had nine and Tschetter had a career-high seven.

Howard set the tone early, hitting a step-in 3-pointer on Michigan's first possession before a pull-up jumper from the elbow the next time down the court. Then after consecutive Dug McDaniel turnovers, Howard hit another 3; this time from the left corner after Bufkin drove baseline and swung the ball from underneath the hoop.

The freshman wasn't done, hitting a long ball from the top of the key just more than a minute later to score the Wolverines' first 11 points.

Michigan shot 45% from long range (14-for-31) while Iowa finished 12 of 30 (40%) on 3-pointers.

The Wolverines went 4 of 6 from the free-throw line while Iowa was 17 of 22.

"It's also kind of tough to win ball games when you only shoot six free throws and the other team shoots 22," Howard said. "I'm not pointing fingers, but that doesn't look — it kind of reminds me of three years ago, my first year coaching here, we shot seven free throws and they attempted like over 20."

Playing big

Murray hit a 3-pointer right after Howard's first, then added a leaning floater on the right side of the floor to cut the deficit to 11-9. After a Dickinson face-up jumper, Murray buried another 3-pointer from the corner to get back within one before Filip Rebraca hit a driving slam to give Iowa its first lead of the game, 14-13.

After Dickinson hit a turn-around and Murray made a leaner off the glass over Howard, Michigan went on a 10-4 run.

Howard knocked down a 3-pointer from the wing, before a live ball turnover led to an uncontested transition layup for McDaniel. Iowa would tie the game at 20 before Will Tschetter hit an elbow jumper just moments after he checked into the game and Howard buried another long ball from the corner — his sixth consecutive made shot to start the game, giving him 17 points less than 10 minutes into the contest.

Joey Baker got on the board with a 3-pointer from the wing, Michigan's sixth make in its first nine attempts before Iowa made consecutive buckets to get back within one.

With Dickinson and Howard off the floor, Bufkin went to work and used a Tarris Reed Jr. screen to turn the corner on the right side and go baseline for the slam putting U-M up 30-27 momentarily, before Murray hit a long ball to tie the game.

Reed Jr. would make the next bucket, a layup, but as he was asking the ref for an And-1 call, Iowa went in transition and his man, Riley Mulvey, made a layup to tie the game.

In the first half, Michigan went with its twin towers look (or as assistant coach Saddi Washington called it on the radio halftime show, the "thump and bump") for the first time all season, with Dickinson (7-foot-1) and Reed (6-10) on the floor together. The two would finish the final 6:55 of the first half on the court and outscore Iowa, 11-8, during that stretch.

"I mean, he's a unit out there," Dickinson said of Reed. "We nicknamed him Hoss because of that and so, he's a great player with a lot of potential, it was fun to go out there and play with him."

"It's something I look forward to in the future if we use (that lineup) in more games."

Howard would add two more buckets in the opening period, the last of which was a slashing floater with 1:46 before the break, to tie his career-high with 21 points in just 18 minutes.

Contact Tony Garcia at apgarcia@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @realtonygarcia.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Michigan basketball falls on Jett Howard's big night, 93-84 at Iowa