Iowa's Connor McCaffery on IU basketball: 'I don't know if they'd ever seen (a zone) before.'

When you blow a 21-point lead, there are a lot of things that usually go wrong. One that stood out as a momentum shift Thursday night was Iowa's switch to a zone defense. As IU let Iowa claw its way back into the game and eventually pull ahead and win, the Hawkeyes' zone seemed to flummox the Hoosiers.

Connor McCaffery, Iowa coach Fran McCaffery's son, hopped on the Field of 68 podcast after the game and said the Hawkeyes exploited what seemed like IU's confusion on how to attack.

Insider:Mistakes, injuries mount as IU is short on options and short on answers.

More:How will Hoosiers fill Race Thompson's shoes? It won't be easy.

"They didn't know what to do against the zone. Their coaching staff was looking, they had no idea. Like I don't know if they'd ever seen it before," Connor McCaffery said.

Now, to be fair, IU still managed to score 89 points. The Hoosiers shot a ridiculous 66% from the field in the first half, including hitting 5-of-7 from behind the arc to build that hefty lead. In the second half, shots weren't falling at the same rate (down to 43% after halftime). And while the zone helped, so did mixing in a full-court press that forced turnovers (including an eight-second violation) and forced IU to run its offensive sets deeper into the shot clock.

IU still averaged 1.06 points per possession in the second half. It was defensive ineptitude that lost the game much more than zone offense.

Also worth noting, starting point guard Xavier Johnson is out indefinitely and captain Race Thompson was forced out prior to halftime with a leg injury.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU basketball: Iowa's Connor McCaffery says Hoosiers were lost in zone