Creighton Men's Basketball Wrestles Past Iowa, 70-69

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Katrelle Harmon's free throw with 27.0 seconds broke a 69-all tie as Creighton survived severe foul trouble in the second half to earn a hard-fought 70-69 win over Iowa on Sunday afternoon inside Casey's Center in Des Moines, Iowa.

Creighton is now 3-1 while Iowa fell to 2-2.

Creighton came out of the gates quickly, racing to a 13-2 lead in the first five minutes. Jackson McAndrew buried a corner three-pointer to start the scoring, followed by a putback dunk from Oswin Erhunmwunse. After a Hawkeye bucket, BJ Davis scored on a drive before Wee Enis and Hudson Greeer followed with triples to make it 13-2. The Hawkeyes tied the game at 22 following a 9-0 run with 7:19 to go in the opening half.

With the score knotted at 24 a short time later, CU used an 18-4 run to regain a double-figure advantage. The turning point came with CU leading 26-24. Davis was fouled on a three-point shot. He made the first two shots, then hustled down his miss and fed Austin Swartz for a three-pointer.  Swartz later hit a pair of deep three-pointers to expand the lead to 42-28 before a late putback from Iowa cut CU's lead 42-30 at the break.

Swartz had 11 points at the intermission while Davis had eight for a Bluejay squad that shot 52 percent from the field, 90 percent at the line, and made 7-of-16 three-pointers. Trevin Jirak had 10 points in the first half for the Hawkeyes, all in the first 12 minutes.

Swartz continued his hot hand with a basket to start the second half, but Iowa responded with a 15-2 blitz as the Jays were whistled for eight fouls in the first eight minutes after the break to take their first lead of the game at 47-46. A four-point play by Wes Enis broke a tie and helped CU to a 56-52 lead.

Iowa took its largest lead at 62-60 before the Jays responded with the next seven points on a trey by Swartz, a lay-in by Harmon and a short jumper by Jasen Green with five minutes remaining that made it 67-62 in CU's favor.  Iowa used an acrobatic lay-in by Kael Combs to tie the score at 69-all with 1:35 left.

CU would miss inside and Iowa called timeout with 57.4 left. Combs would miss in traffic would grab the rebound resulted in a jump ball, and Iowa possession, with 35.0 left. Iowa would miss a trey but Harmon was fouled in the battle for the rebound and went to the line with 27.0 left. He made the first, missed the second and the Jays survived a missed trey by McCollum in the waning seconds as Harmon hauled in the rebound.

Swartz led CU with 18 points. 

Jirak scored a career-high 22 points, adding six rebounds and six assists before fouling out with 3:41 left and Cooper Koch had 16 points and 10 rebounds. Iowa made 26-of-33 free throws, including 20-of-25 after the break.

Creighton is back on the court on Wednesday at 8 p.m. when it hosts Bethune-Cookman in a game that will be televised on truTV.