Keegan Murray scored 26 points and Payton Sandfort added 21 as Iowa led throughout and routed travel-weary Alabama State 108-82 Thursday night in Iowa City.
Iowa’s Jordan Bohannon became the Big Ten’s all-time leader in made 3-pointers with 378, breaking the mark of 374 set by Jon Diebler, who played for Ohio State from 2007-11. Diebler shot 41.6 percent from long distance, while Bohannon is at 40.2 percent.
Bohannon scored 12 points, going 4-for-8 from the field, all from beyond the arc.
Christian McCray scored 20 points and Texas transfer Gerald Liddell added 19 for Alabama State (0-5), which finally will play at home when it faces North Carolina Central on Saturday. The Hornets had lost by eight at Iowa State two nights earlier, but they were never competitive in this contest.
The Hornets trailed 63-36 at halftime and didn’t get closer than 21 in the second half. The Hawkeyes topped the century mark when Sandfort hit a 3-point jumper from the right wing off a feed from Joe Toussaint with 5:39 remaining.
Iowa didn’t waste any time getting the upper hand. The Hawkeyes had struggled to put away another low-major team, North Carolina Central, of Tuesday. In that game, Iowa led by only five points at halftime before tightening up its defense in the second half to win by 17.
This time, Murray’s 3-pointer 22 seconds into the game opened the scoring, and it was off to the races, almost literally, as the up-tempo Hawkeyes shot 23-for-35 (65.7 percent) from the field and 11-for-20 (55 percent) from beyond the arc in the first half en route to a 27-point lead at intermission.
Iowa led 30-10 on Kris Murray’s putback with 11:20 left in the half. Kris Murray had missed the North Carolina Central game because of a non-COVID illness. That was his only basket of the half, but it didn’t matter because twin brother Keegan Murray had 22 points prior to the break.
Kris Murray finished the night with 17 points and eight rebounds.
–Field Level Media
