Ohio State Ohio State/Iowa Iowa Men's College Basketball recap on ESPN

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) – Ohio State coach Jim O'Brien kept adjusting his offense, but in the end it was mostly guards Brian Brown and Brent Darby causing too much chaos for Iowa (No. 16 ESPN/USA Today, No. 14 AP).

Brown scored 20 points and hit all four of his 3-point attempts and Darby added 15 points as Ohio State defeated the Hawkeyes 69-68 on Wednesday night.

"We keep tweaking our offense. Tonight, we got a lot of looks from our perimeter guys," O'Brien said. "We went back to getting some fade screens for our guards and it was big that our guys made the shots."

Iowa coach Steve Alford said Brown and Darby couldn't be stopped.

"I thought that our guards were poor on defense all night. I think that is about as bad as we have been in the backcourt, defensively," he said. "I thought that in the second half, Ohio State showed how badly they wanted to win this game."

Sean Connolly scored 11 points and Ken Johnson added 10 points, nine rebounds and six blocked shots for Ohio State (15-8, 6-5 Big Ten), which has won three of four.

"Kevin Johnson brings everything to this team," Brown said. "He's our go-to guy. He's definitely the key to our defense."

Iowa (17-5, 6-3), playing its first game since learning that leading scorer Luke Recker might be out for the rest of the season with a knee injury, got a season-high 27 points from Dean Oliver and 14 points and 11 rebounds from Reggie Evans.

"We are not as tough without Luke Recker," Alford said. "Our players have to handle situations better and I have to coach better. I thought I got out-coached during the last five minutes of the game and that is something that I need to look at."

Clutch shooting by Brown, who was 7-of-12 from the field, and Darby as well as timely jump hook shots by Johnson helped the Buckeyes overcome a 55-46 deficit with 9:24 remaining.

Iowa still had a chance to win in the final 21.6 seconds, but Ryan Hogan's off-balance, one-handed leaner missed with 4.3 seconds to play to preserve OSU's 68-65 lead. Darby was fouled on the rebound and sank one of two free throws before Oliver's 40-foot heave swished through at the buzzer.

Brown, Darby and Johnson combined to score 19 of Ohio State's final 23 points. Johnson, who leads the Big Ten in blocked shots, has 420 in his career and needs nine more to break the conference record set by Penn State's Calvin Booth (1995-99).

Hogan, who had scored 15, six and 12 points while starting three previous times in place of Recker, finished with just four points. He shot 2-for-9 from the field and missed both free-throw attempts with 4:44 to play that would have extended Iowa's 60-58 lead.

Instead, Brown sank two free throws to tie it, and Darby hit one of two from the line to give OSU a 61-60 lead it never gave up in the final 3:52.

A 3-pointer by Oliver with 11 seconds left before halftime gave the Hawkeyes a 32-28 lead despite shooting only 37.1 percent.

The Buckeyes didn't fare much better, hitting just 11 of 28 shots for 39.3 percent as they fell behind 21-12 after Cortney Scott's basket capped a 13-2 Iowa run at the 8:19 mark.

A pair of 3-pointers by Darby and Sean Connolly helped spark a 10-4 spurt to pull the Buckeyes back to 25-22, but Evans hit a free throw and Oliver followed with a basket to push Iowa's lead to seven.

Dudley answered with a basket and Velimir Radinovic sank two free throws with 1:28 left in the half that made it 29-26 before Oliver's 3-pointer.

ALSO SEE
Men's College Basketball Scoreboard

Ohio State Clubhouse

Iowa Clubhouse

Recker frustrated by knee injury that might have ended his year

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Highlights from Ohio State's upset of the Iowa Hawkeyes.
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