By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

A historic comeback had been completed, and he had a big part in it.

So of course Payton Sandfort was going to be brimming with confidence.

Minutes after Iowa had come back from 20 points down in the second half to defeat Minnesota, 90-85, in Sunday’s game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Sandfort was asked if the Hawkeyes could take this win and do something with it.

“We will,” Sandfort said.

They must.

Time is running out on the Hawkeyes’ season. The resumé they have crafted for postseason consideration is full of blemishes, and at some point the win-here-lose-there-win-here-lose-there has to end.

For it to end, the Hawkeyes are going to have to win games like they did on Sunday, preferably without a 20-point hole, but if you dig your way out of that, you can do that in close games.

Which Iowa hasn’t done at times in Big Ten play.

Iowa, 14-10 overall, is 6-7 in the conference, and can lament the games it has let get away, whether it was the 69-67 home loss to Maryland, the road losses at Indiana and Penn State where the Hawkeyes had leads late, or the 10-point home loss to Michigan at home to conclude a bruising three-loss week that has set this season on its current course.

Confidence gets you through February and into March, and the Hawkeyes need that.

“It’s absolutely critical,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “If you lose them all, it can snowball on you. If you win them all, it will start feeling like it’s easy. You have to deal with adversity, and you have to deal with guys on the other team making really good plays.”

The past is certainly an education for the Hawkeyes, and the wish is the lesson of Sunday’s win is the start of something much bigger.

“I certainly hope so,” McCaffery said. “You know, I think that’s a possibility. But I think we can all agree that this league is really unique this year, in the sense that pretty much every time two teams take the floor anybody can win. Probably more so than ever. Certainly in my 14 years but you guys have been doing it longer. 

“Seems like every game is coming down to the last minute. So I do think it changes your confidence level. It changes how you look at each other. And it highlights what you need to do to win close games. Obviously everybody’s had a bunch of them. We’ve been in a bunch. You’ve got to win some.”

McCaffery knew how the Hawkeyes won this one.

“It’s the way comebacks always happen,” McCaffery said. “You have to be better defensively. You have to stay the course. And we have an unselfish group — we have a lot of different guys who can score.”

It was the largest second-half comeback win since Iowa rallied from 22 points down to win at Illinois in the 1986-87 season. It tied for the fourth largest comeback win overall in program history.

Iowa trailed 62-42 with 16:11 left in the game, then went on a 39-15 run. The Hawkeyes scored the last 16 points in that stretch.

A defense that had been seemingly one step slow all game was suddenly up on shooters. Iowa held the Gophers to just 38.7 percent shooting in the second half after allowing them to score 51 first-half points.

“We just stressed, ‘Change the season right now. Change the effort on the defensive end,’” Sandfort said. “And that’s kind of where everything changed. Our defense was terrible (in the first half). They weren’t missing shots either, and that didn’t help. And then we really ramped up the intensity, and that’s when we were able to make the big run, and it started there.”

It was also won with the confidence McCaffery had in his lineup to close the game. Iowa has a deep rotation — 10 players appeared in Sunday’s game — but in the last 8:54 McCaffery kept the same lineup of Sandfort, Patrick McCaffery, Owen Freeman, Tony Perkins, and Josh Dix in the game. The five combined for 46 of Iowa’s 52 second-half points.

It is something Fran McCaffery has done a lot, especially in the last few seasons, and it always seems to work..

“I considered (substituting) at one point,” he said. “It wasn’t like, ‘Take a guy out.’ It was like, ‘Is Patrick tired? Is Tony tired?’ But (Minnesota coach) Ben (Johnson) took a couple of timeouts, and we had the media timeouts, and it was like, OK, they look fine, we have a lineup that was clicking. Both teams kind of essentially went small, so I think that it was important that we keep that group together.”

Iowa attacked Minnesota’s defense, which was without forward Dawson Garcia for almost all of the second half when he went out with an injury. The Hawkeyes made just three 3-pointers in the second half, choosing instead to go to the basket.

“I just didn’t like our edge,” Johnson said. “I don’t think we had it — when (Garcia) went out we lost our edge. And he’s such a key part of that, just the confidence piece but also just the edge, even defensively. Kind of like the anchor, especially in a game like this. He kind of settles us, and so we were just fighting the rest of the half to try to get that back.”

Regardless of how this season ends, there is a fight that can be appreciated in the Hawkeyes.

“That’s kind of just who we are,” Sandfort said. “And that’s the way we’ve been the whole year.”

The whole year has been condensed to weeks when, ideally, you want to have the resumé where you can break down the remaining games into good-wins and should-wins.

For the Hawkeyes, everything is a must-win now.

Photo: Iowa’s Patrick McCaffery (22) and Payton Sandfort (20) celebrate in the closing seconds of the Hawkeyes’ 90-85 win over Minnesota on Sunday. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)