Iowa went 1-1 in their next two games, home dates against Michgian and lowly Northwestern. Against Michigan, Iowa was in a romantic mood for V-Day, behind a pretty solid Carver crowd, and got off to a roaring start, hitting jumper after jumper and taking a 29-7 lead at one point. Michigan battled back thanks to usually sloppy play from our guards, and we kind of missed our chances to blow them out and we ended up holding them to a still pretty comfortable 16 points at the half, even though we didnt play as well to end it. Well, to say this game was a tale of two halves would be an understatement. We showed up in the 2nd expecting Michgian to bow down to us, but they came out firing, led by fabulously scoring frosh Manny Harris, and making all their shots and playing with much more defensive intensity and fire than we did. Gorney played hard the entire time and made some shots, while Kelly paced us with his scoring, but we totally let this one fall out of our grasp with poor defense and careless play. Freeman sat for quite some time in the 2nd thanks to crazy shot selecton and we looked lost without him, and Peterson looked shaky running the point. Michigan ended up scoring 44 second half points and beat us 60-53, one of the most disappointing losses of the season considering we had them in our grasp. Hats off to Michgian coming out a totally different team in the 2nd half though, and they are playing much better than they were at the beginning of the year. They even beat Ohio State after taking us out. Still doesnt take away the sting of this one though, as giving up 44 points in a half won't win you many games when you score as many points as Iowa does. The next game was against horrible but unique Northwestern, a team that hasn't won a conference game in more than a year. They are several notches below the other Big Ten teams as far as talent level goes, but they rely on their tricky, patient Princeton offense and three point shooting to hang with teams that have way more athletic talent. The Wildcats have given us trouble in the past, forcing us to be patient on defense and block out every time, but we haven't see how we do against them in the Lickliter era. The 1st half of this one put basketball back 50 years, ending in a 17-15 lead for Northwestern after missed shot after missed shot, turnover after turnover. It was extremly ugly, and it looked like Iowa hadn't woken up for this one. The crowd was sparse and disinterested, while Kelly and Tate were the only Hawkeyes providing any scoring. Gorney kept us in it with some set shots in the 2nd half, but NU came roaring out with hot three point shooting and flat-out more intensity, embarassing us big time with a 14 point lead. Then we figured out we could get the ball to our man inside, Cyrus Tate. Tate was manhandling the much-undersized NU post players and getting great position every time, and once we figured that out and started getting him the ball we picked up our play and everyone got more confidence. Tate finished strong every time, cleaned up the glass, and played with a lot of energy to spur on the comeback. Freeman then hit three consecutive three pointers, while bench-warmer Dan Bohall finally saw the court again and made some huge contributions, playing awesome defense for the majority of the 2nd half while getting a key steal and layup along with a clutch three pointer. It was good to see those three players make big contributions and give us some scoring, while Kelly also finished with 12 points and did a nice job from the charity stripe. I was not impressed with the mindless play of Justin Johnson though, as he made some stupid passes and even dumber shots, hurting the team. Our effort was so much better in the 2nd half and it felt good to escape with a win and get back on track, even if it was against a team like NU. We needed it, and a "W" is a "W".