On Feb.16 and 17, the Iowa Hawkeyes faced the Nebraska Cornhuskers in both women’s and men’s basketball.
The women played at Pinnacle Bank Arena on Presidents Day in front of a mixed gold and red crowd, where the Hawkeyes won 80-67. This was the second time these two teams had met, with the first one alsogoing Iowa’s way 86-76.
While the Huskers didn’t necessarily play bad, their defense had no response for Ava Heiden and the Iowa team. Heiden recorded a double-double, with 27 points and 11 rebounds. Guard Taylor Stremlow helped out going 6-7 from the floor and ending the game with 17 points. Other notable contributors for the Hawkeyes were Chazadi Wright who had 14 points and 7 assists and Journey Houston who had 10 points and 4 rebounds off the bench.
Britt Prince, Nebraska’s star player, was held to only 13 points when she averages 17 points per game. Prince was still the team’s leading scorer, with everyone else scoring 10 points and under. The team went 4-19 from the three-point line, something that their offense needs. Rebounds also did not go the Huskers way, with them only picking up 23 boards compared to the Hawkeyes 31.
Iowa’s win brought them to 21 wins, making head coach Jan Jensen the first Iowa women’s basketball head coach to have over 20 wins in their first two seasons in the position.
The very next night, Feb.17, the Nebraska men’s team took the five-hour journey to Carver-Hawkeye Arena for their own matchup against Iowa. Coming into the game, Nebraska was ranked ninth with Iowa being unranked. Iowa ended up giving Nebraska their fourth loss of the season, winning a nailbiter 57-52.
The big storyline coming into the game was Pryce Sandfort’s return to CHA. Sandfort is from Waukee, Iowa and played in Iowa for two seasons before transferring when head coach Fran McCaffery was fired. Pryce’s older brother, Payton, also played for the Hawkeyes for four years.
As the Husker’s starting line-up was called, Sandfort’s name was met was an explosive sound of boos by Iowa fans, followed by many expletives. These chants continued throughout the game.
Sandfort had a night similar to Prince’s, putting up 13 points compared to his 17 point-per-game average. He didn’t do much besides being the team’s leading scorer on the night, with no rebounds and no assists. It’s unclear if the hostile environment affected Sandfort’s play. After the game he said, “I didn’t hear them chanting at me.”
A bright spot for the Huskers was Rienk Mast’s rebounding. He secured eight boards while the rest of his team was far below him, except for Sam Hoiberg who had 6.
Fouls were an issue for both teams in the game, but most substantially impacted Nebraska. All five of their starters had two or more fouls, with Mast and Hoiberg having four. Iowa took advantage of this and only missed one of their 18 free throws taken.
The star for Iowa that night was Bennett Stirtz, who led the team in scoring with 25 points, very close to half of the score. He was 100% from the free throw line and had two steals and two blocks.
Tavion Banks had 10 rebounds for the Hawkeyes, 4 of them being offensive. He also had two steals and one block.
This Iowa win marks the start of a new era in Iowa men’s basketball. New head coach Ben McCollum, previous head coach at Drake, had changed the program to have a record of 31-4 before moving on to Iowa. The win was the Hawkeyes first against a ranked opponent since 2024. The 57-point win is the least points that Iowa has scored and won the game since 2012. After a slower start to what fans call the ‘Ben McCollum Era’, this win could catapult this team into possibly making noise in the Big Ten Tournament and then March Madness.
The intensity of the rivalry game didn’t stop after the final buzzer. Iowa fans stormed the court, celebrating the win. Nebraska head coach Fred Hoiberg was going through the handshake line and a student approached him, seemingly taunting him. Hoiberg reacted, and swiped at the student, but he missed and ended up hitting an Iowa assistant coach. The University of Iowa issued an apology to Hoiberg for the breach in security that led to the event and says that it will look into its procedures and security in hopes to prevent this from happening again.
The Big Ten is taking no action against Hoiberg for the incident. In a press conference on Feb. 20, Hoiberg also defended his actions saying, “I am 100% reliant on a pacemaker, that I was told, I’ll never forget a conversation with my doctor, if a cell phone can set it off. If anything ever happens, I’m done. I will not survive if something ever happens to my pacemaker. I am very cognizant of that, so when somebody rushes up on me with a cell phone, of course I’m going to react.” The University of Nebraska has not commented on the situation.
The men’s teams will meet once again before the season ends at PBA, and it is almost guaranteed that they will play with a chip on their shoulder to try and secure the rivalry win before postseason play.
