Lickliter Comments on Iowa's 53-51 Win

It wasn't pretty, but Iowa beat Northwestern 53-51 Tuesday night. The Hawks scored just 15 first half points, making just four field goals along the way and they committed eight turnovers. Things got worse in the second half, as they found themselves down by 14 points with 12:55 to play. But the Hawks fought back and got the win, and Todd Lickliter talked about it after the game...

Todd Lickliter Opening Statement

It didn’t look good for us, did it. About four or five days ago we came in and I asked them to communicate and be sharp and do all of this. Dan Bohall, JR Angle and David Palmer did that. I told them after practice that that is the way you are supposed to conduct yourself and not let circumstances dictate your attitude. Tonight, we got good effort out of them. That is a neat thing to watch guys put the team first. It’s fun for me.

I think Northwestern, I have been watching them and they have been playing better than what they even played tonight. They haven’t got the wins, so I knew they were very dangerous, they had a great run at us and to our guys credit, we were able to regain our composure and find Cyrus inside. That was big for us, and it opened some other things up. Tonight, even though they scored, we defended in the second half, not perfect by any means, but we came pretty close to meeting our assignments and understanding what we wanted to do. We wanted them to catch on the perimeter and they made some threes, but we thought that was better than back cuts and layups.

Q: Tate getting loose in the paint really changed the game.

Todd Lickliter: It took us a little while to figure it out. We tried it earlier. I give guys credit for entry passes. Bohall threw one in there, I know Jake did, I am not sure who else. Tony had a drive and a feed. He did a good job of sealing and getting angles and they decided to throw it in there. I think we could throw it in there more, and maybe this will help our guys recognize that.

Q: Justin didn’t score, but he had nine rebounds and six assists.

Lickliter: I have been saying all along, don’t just look at if a guy scores or not. It says that he didn’t let missing shots affect the way he played the game. I would like for him to guard with a little greater purpose, but he was pretty efficient with it. Assist and rebounds, he did his job.

Q: What happened in the first half, field goal wise, scoring wise?

Lickliter: We didn’t make very many. Is that what you are looking for? I actually thought we missed some good shots. And we turned it over. Take a couple bad shots, you won’t make them. Turn it over, you don’t get a shot. Now it puts all the pressure on every good shot you take, and if you don’t make those, now what? That happened to us. We didn’t get enough good shots and you are not going to make all of your good shots.