By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY — Payton Sandfort limped to the sideline in the second half with another ache in what is becoming a painful final season for the Iowa forward.

It was only a cramp, and after a quick treatment Sandfort was back on the court.

Sandfort logged 38 minutes, 27 seconds in Tuesday’s 90-81 loss to No. 7 Purdue at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Sandfort has been a constant in a season in which the Hawkeyes have seemed painfully short-handed, literally and figuratively — 22 games, 22 starts, a team-high 663 minutes, 16 seconds on the court.

It’s going to be that way the rest of the year for him, and a few others, as the Hawkeyes try to salvage a season that is getting away from them.

This defeat put them at 13-9 overall, 4-7 in the Big Ten. Nine regular-season games remain, and then there’s the conference tournament, provided they’re one of the 15 teams who make it, and then, who knows?

Their leading scorer and rebounder, Owen Freeman, is out for the season after undergoing surgery on his right hand Monday. So it is up to Sandfort, Josh Dix, Brock Harding, and the rest of the cast, to save all of this.

Dix had 27 points and Sandfort had 23, combining to make 19 of 33 shots, which is how this duo must perform the rest of the season.

“We both know that we’ve got to be aggressive,” Dix said. “We’ve got to score on the offensive end.”

“They’ve been great all year long,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “They were ready to go tonight. Both of them were spectacular.”

Spectacular, but they needed help.

Even without Freeman, the Hawkeyes had their chances against the Boilermakers, who left Iowa City as the first team in the Big Ten to reach 10 conference wins this season and were in sole possession of first place by the time they got home after Michigan State’s late-night loss at UCLA.

Iowa and Purdue each had 30 field goals — the Hawkeyes took one more shot — and the Boilermakers made one more 3-pointer. Each team made 11 turnovers, but Iowa’s were converted into 21 Purdue points.

Iowa led by as much as seven points in the first half, but was taken out by a 17-5 run by Purdue in the second half.

Still, the Hawkeyes were within 80-77 with 2:18 to play when Sandfort missed a 3-pointer he thought was going to be good. It turned out to be Iowa’s last thrust in this game.

“I thought the whole team came out inspired,” Sandfort said. “And I think we knew what we had had to do, and there’s just that stretch in the beginning of the second half that kind of cost us the game. But we really competed, and I’m proud of a lot of the guys for the way they stepped up.”

The run by Purdue early in the second half resembled so many of those opponents’ bursts that have doomed the Hawkeyes this season. The teams were tied at 36 at halftime — Iowa allowed Purdue to get the last five points of the first half — then the Boilermakers opened the second half by making eight of their first nine shots, including all five of their 3-point attempts.

“They’re a really good team, and they made adjustments,” Sandfort said. “They came out ready to play in the second half. That stretch of the game is something we’ve got to figure out, because it’s kind of nipping us a lot of these games.”

McCaffery made a couple of lineup changes to offset Freeman’s absence. Seydou Traore took the forward spot next to Sandfort, and fourth-year junior Riley Mulvey made his first career start at center.

McCaffery shuttled Mulvey, Even Brauns and Ladji Dembele in and out of the post, and they would combine for six points, five rebounds and two blocked shots. 

It was OK, but it wasn’t enough, a storyline that is familiar with this team this season.

There is a strong character to this team that sometimes gets hidden by the outside fixations, whether it’s the dwindling attendance — the box score listed this game’s attendance at 8,445 in the 15,000-seat arena — or the wondering about McCaffery’s future or the rumblings about end-of-the-season transfers, the kind of clouds that can envelope a struggling team in the fog.

There have been some ugly losses for the Hawkeyes this season. This was one of those defeats where might-have-beens gnaw, and those can hurt the most.

Sandfort’s thought drifted back to that late three.

“That’s one I’ll be thinking about for a long time,” he said. “I think that one kind of hurts, but I’m proud of myself the way that I fought, the way that all of us fought. To be in that position, especially the way we started the second half, is the credit to just the fight we have on this team.”

Whether that fight will be enough in the next nine games is something the Hawkeyes are about to find out.

Photo: Iowa’s Payton Sandfort shoots during Tuesday’s game against Purdue. (Photo from Iowa Athletic Communications)