By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

INDIANAPOLIS — Brock Harding wasn’t sure if it meant anything at the time, he was just relieved that he made the shot.

Harding put up a half-court shot at every pre-game shootaround this season, and never made one until Wednesday, when the Hawkeyes were preparing for their Big Ten Tournament first-round game.

“Nothing but net,” Harding said.

Teammate Drew Thelwell, though, thought it was a sign of what was to come.

“Side note — that kid hit his first half-court shot before the game,” Thelwell said. “First one he made all year, so we had a good feeling.”

As it turned out, it wasn’t Harding’s biggest shot of the day.

Harding’s 3-pointer with 16 seconds left sealed Iowa’s 77-70 win over Ohio State at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, sending the 15th-seeded Hawkeyes into Thursday’s second-round game against fifth seed Illinois.

The only way the Hawkeyes (17-15) are going to get to the NCAA tournament is win this tournament, and that means five wins in five days, something that hasn’t been done since the tournament expanded to a five-day bracket in 2015.

One down, yet these Hawkeyes have been playing what seems like elimination games for a while. They needed to win on Sunday at Nebraska just to get here, and they did just that.

“There’s a little pressure on us, because we want to get to the (NCAA) tournament, and we have to win all five here,” guard Josh Dix said. “But we know we’re kind of playing with house money a little bit. We weren’t even supposed to be here a week ago.”

“We’ve had so many ups and downs this season,” Harding said. “Guys have been hurt. Guys have been battling through everything. We’ve had some tough losses. We’ve had some big losses. Just to be able to battle — make it to the Big Ten tournament and then make it out of the first round,, just really speaks a lot about how much fight this team has, and how much these games mean to us.”

The Hawkeyes last won this tournament in 2022, in this same arena, winning four games in four days. That run was built with contributions from just about everybody over those four days, and this win was built with a similar all-in approach.

The usuals came through — Payton Sandfort, the team’s second-leading scorer this season, had 17 points, and Dix had 16.

But Harding had 10 points in the first half, and finished with 15. Pryce Sandfort had four points in the span of 36 seconds in the second half to cool off an 8-0 run that had put Ohio State in the lead, then hit a 3-pointer with 3:44 left that gave Iowa a 68-61 lead. Seydou Traore had four points in 24 seconds to put Iowa as part of an 8-0 run early in the second half that put Iowa up 54-46. Ladji Dembele had eight points and a team-high nine rebounds.

It was a checklist Iowa coach Fran McCaffery ran through after the game.

“That’s what makes you proud, when they stay together and compete, win on the road (at Nebraska) like they did and then come down here and win,” McCaffery said. “To see them celebrate in the locker room, that’s really special.”

Harding has 24 starts this season, but has been coming off the bench as the Hawkeyes have gone with a bigger lineup since the season-ending injury to leading scorer and rebounderOwen Freeman. 

“It’s just sticking to my faith, sticking to my work ethic, just never getting too high, never getting too low, trusting my teammates,” Harding said. “Everybody on this team loves each other. We’re battling every day, going at each other. That’s what makes our group so close — whoever’s scoring, whoever’s playing well, nobody cares really, as long as we’re winning games. And that just speaks to what this team’s about.”

“Regardless of whether he’s starting or not, he’s big-time for us,” Thelwell said.

Harding’s final shot was atonement he wanted after he was called for traveling with 50 seconds left. Bruce Thornton, who led the Buckeyes with 24 points, scored five seconds later, and suddenly Iowa’s lead was just 72-70.

“I mean, you can’t turn the ball over like that late in the game,” Harding said. “Bruce Thornton comes down, hits a fade-away in the corner, and you’re like, ‘Damn, that’s on me.’”

The Hawkeyes went through most of the shot clock on the next possession, then Dix passed the ball to Harding in front of the Iowa bench. Harding’s 3-pointer was perfect.

“I was really hoping that Josh was going to hit the step-back middie, and he kicked it to me,” Harding said. “I knew I had to make up for the turnover somehow, and it found me and it went in.”

“Big-time players hit big-time shots,” Pryce Sandfort said.

“He made a turnover, but I knew he was gonna get it back,” Thelwell said. “I could tell just from his face he was gonna get the playback, and when he caught it, I knew it was going in.”

Thelwell told how he made eye contact with Harding after the shot.

“I’m telling everybody, I knew it was good the way he caught it. Once he hit it, we did our little signal to each other,” Thelwell said, holding up three fingers. “It felt good. I was happy for him.”

There was confidence everywhere in that shot.

“Once I threw it to him, I knew it was going down,” Dix said. “That shot is what he lives for.”

“I wasn’t surprised,” McCaffery said. “Were you surprised?”

Ohio State has stuck Iowa in this tournament the last two seasons — the 2023 Buckeyes, who have lasted the longest of any first-day team in this current five-day bracket by reaching the semifinals, eliminated Iowa in the second round of that tournament, and last season’s team knocked the Hawkeyes out in the second round when they needed a couple of wins to have a chance at the NCAA Tournament.

“Last year we were right on the bubble, and they beat us,” Payton Sandfort said. “It feels good to knock their season out and we get to keep playing this time.”

“I saw something today, I told the guys they had, like, a 78% chance to make it (into the NCAA tournament) if they beat us, and then like 14 (percent) if they didn’t beat us,” Harding said. ”We know our chance to get into the (NCAA) tournament isn’t great. So let’s win the tournament, and we might as well ruin their tournament.”

Dix was right — the Hawkeyes seemed buried a week ago. Now they live in the bracket for another day.

“We know that our record’s not great, our (NCAA) tournament hopes aren’t great, but we know that we’re never gonna stop fighting,” Harding said.

Photo: Iowa’s Brock Harding hits a late 3-pointer in the 77-70 win over Ohio State in the Big Ten Tournament. (Stephen Mally/hawkeyesports.com)