Iowa defeated Northwestern 80-79 in stunning fashion Tuesday night to open Big Ten regular-season play when junior guard Josh Dix drilled a fadeaway 3-pointer from the logo as time expired in regulation. Dix finished the game with a team-high 22 points and was 3 of 8 from 3-point range on the night after missing his previous four attempts from distance before calling game.
The game-winner was set up after Iowa coach Fran McCaffery called timeout off a missed free throw from Northwestern’s Ty Berry on the other end. Once the ball was advanced, the Hawkeyes ran what appeared to be a backdoor alley-oop play to Owen Freeman, which served as a decoy to give Dix just enough space to fire from long range.
Northwestern effectively wiped sharpshooter Payton Sandfort out of the play by denying the inbounds pass to him in the corner and was all over Freeman as he cut to the hoop for a potential game-tying tip-in. That led Iowa to call Dix’s number as the play’s last option, McCaffery said.
“They took away two or three [options],” McCaffery said of the inbounds that led to Dix’s game-winner. “They chased Payton [Sandfort] and they were mugging Owen [Freeman] on the back pick. So your last option is Josh, and he made it.”
Iowa led for a majority of the game and built its lead to as many as 17 in the first half before nearly collapsing in the second half. It made five of its final field goal attempts to close the game, helping it erase a six-point deficit over the course of the final 98 seconds of regulation.
