Bottom line: Iowa earns a top-four Big Ten finish at 14-4, reaches the Big Ten tournament semifinals, lands a 4-seed for the NCAA tournament, holds serve at Carver to reach the Sweet 16 and narrowly misses a major regional-semifinal upset in Birmingham (or maybe Spokane).

Iowa grabbed a double-digit lead late in the first quarter and maintained it throughout, aside from two Purdue pushes. The Hawkeyes' cushion dipped from 15 to five during a four-minute stretch early in the second quarter, then slid from 21 to eight midway through the third. Both times, Iowa countered back with a momentum-sucking surge.