In its first Big Ten loss of the 2020-21 season, Northwestern could at least hang its head on the fact that it held Luka Garza — the current frontrunner for every single national player of the year award imaginable — to his second-lowest scoring output of the season and his only game with a negative Net rating, per BartTorvik. While there’s no disputing the Wildcats’ effective defense on Garza, I took to Twitter to point out that in slowing the Hawkeyes’ big man, they surrendered openings to Iowa’s squadron of sharpshooters.
NU deserves props for holding Garza to 18 pts, but their added focus on him opened things up for Iowa's shooters.