IOWA CITY, Iowa — Jett Howard seemingly couldn’t miss.
No matter the distance, degree of difficulty or location on the court, the freshman wing put on a dazzling shooting display on Thursday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
From either corner. Contested from the top of the key. From Hawkeye logo at midcourt. It didn’t matter for Howard, who torched the nets during a career performance.
But it ultimately wasn’t enough as Michigan squandered a 10-point second-half lead and Howard’s big night, letting a prime opportunity to pick up a Big Ten road win slip away in a 93-84 overtime loss to Iowa.
Howard poured in a career-high 34 points and made seven 3-pointers for Michigan. He shattered his previous high of 21 points that he set in the season opener and matched that mark in the first half alone.
Freshman guard Dug McDaniel had 12 points, seven assists and missed a floater on Michigan’s final possession in regulation. Junior center Hunter Dickinson added 12 points and 13 rebounds for the Wolverines (9-7, 3-2 Big Ten), which made just one shot and was outscored 14-5 in overtime.
Kris Murray scored 27 and Payton Sandfort added 26, including a four-point play with 20 seconds left the forced overtime, for Iowa (11-6, 3-3). Filip Rebraca added 13 points and 12 rebounds and Josh Dix scored 10.
After coughing up a seven-point lead with 2:18 left in regulation, Michigan quickly fell behind and apart as Iowa scored the first eight points of overtime and never looked back.
Iowa took an 81-79 lead on a jumper from Sandfort. A turnover led to a free throw for Murray and a three-point Iowa lead. Then after Michigan came up empty on its next possession on a pair of missed 3-point attempts, Sandfort scored on an offensive put-back while being fouled and converted the three-point play to give Iowa an 85-79 advantage with 3:00 left in the extra session.
It never got any better for the Wolverines. Dickinson missed the front end of a one-and-one. Murray added two free throws on the other end to make it an eight-point game at the 2:32 mark.
From there, Iowa extended its lead to 90-81 before Howard was fouled on a 3-point shot and made all three free throws to make it a six-point game with 37 seconds left. But Michigan could never get any closer.
After riding Howard’s hot hand to a three-point halftime lead, Michigan used 3-pointers from sophomore guard Kobe Bufkin and junior forward Terrance Williams II, who had his right hand/wrist wrapped, to widen its lead to 51-44 early in the second half.
Iowa erased the deficit in the hurry as its offense heated up. Murray blocked a 3-point attempt by Howard, corralled the ball and raced down the court for a layup before Sandfort buried a deep ball to give the Hawkeyes a 53-52 edge at the 14:44 mark.
Howard single-handedly stemmed the tide. He quieted the crowd with a 3-pointer to put Michigan back in front. After Iowa tied it back up, he knocked down a turnaround jumper and followed that with another 3-pointer, this time coming off a screen from straightaway. Howard then blew by defender for a layup before sophomore forward Will Tschetter capped a 10-0 run with a 3-pointer to make it 65-55 with 10:56 to play.
The Hawkeyes answered with a 12-4 spurt to make it a one-possession game. The run started with a quick burst of seven unanswered points, highlighted by Murray’s fourth 3-pointer, to pull within 65-62. The Wolverines pushed the lead back to seven before Sandfort ended the run with a 3-pointer to cut it to 69-67 at the 6:15 mark.
McDaniel kept Iowa at bay with two critical shots. He stuffed the Hawkeyes’ momentum with a 3-pointer to make it a five-point game. Then after Iowa pulled within two again, he splashed another 3-pointer to make it 75-70 with 3:09 remaining.
But the Wolverines weren’t out of the woods. After extending the lead to seven on a Dickinson tip-in with 2:18 to play, the Hawkeyes used a late push fueled by Sandfort, who hit a 3-pointer and converted a four-point play to tie it at 79 with 20.7 seconds remaining.
Michigan came up empty on its final possession as McDaniel’s runner in the lane missed the mark as time expired.
Howard came out on fire and drained his first six shots, including five from beyond the arc. He opened the scoring with a deep ball from the wing and followed that with a mid-range jumper on Michigan’s next possession.
The Wolverines kept finding Howard and Bufkin whipped a baseline pass to the right corner, where Howard splashed his second 3-pointer. Two possessions later, Howard continued his scoring barrage by taking a handoff and knocking down a long-range shot from straightaway to give Michigan an 11-5 lead with 16:22 left in the first half.
The Hawkeyes countered with Murray to keep pace. He fueled a 9-2 spurt by flipping up a floater over Williams and splashing a corner 3-pointer to put Iowa up, 14-13, at the 13:50 mark.
But the Hawkeyes had no answer for Howard. He drained his fourth 3-pointer from the left corner to give the Wolverines a two-point lead. Then after a driving layup by Murray knotted it at 20, Howard connected on a deep ball from the Hawkeyes logo to give Michigan a 25-20 advantage.
Howard didn’t miss his first shot until he had a shot attempt in the paint blocked by Murray at the 8:26 mark. When Howard checked out for a breather, Iowa pulled even twice — the first time on Murray’s third 3-pointer — before Dickinson picked up the scoring slack during a stretch where he played alongside freshman center Tarris Reed Jr. Dickinson scored on a hook shot and made an open 3-pointer to give Michigan a 37-32 lead with 6:00 left in the first half before Howard returned.
Once back in, Howard picked right back from where he left off, putting on the moves and getting free for a mid-range jumper. Then after Iowa took a brief one-point lead, Howard capped his sizzling half with a floater to tie his career high with 21 points and give Michigan a 43-30 edge at the break.
