By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Western Illinois’ men’s basketball team stayed within striking distance of Iowa for 25 minutes of Friday’s game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

The Hawkeyes’ defense, though, proved to be too much for the Leathernecks in the 77-58 loss.

Western Illinois (0-2) was held to just six field goals on 27.3% shooting in the second half, almost half of the production of the first half when the Leathernecks only trailed 41-33 at halftime.

“It’s kind of what I was afraid of going into the game — they wore us down defensively,” Western Illinois coach Chad Boudreau said. “I thought they just physically wore us down. They pushed us off spots offensively, which caused turnovers. And the turnovers killed us.”

Western Illinois had 14 turnovers that led to 24 Iowa points.

“Iowa was really good defensively, and they’re really well coached,” Boudreau said. “We know that, everybody knows that. They squeezed us, and that squeeze got us out of system and got us off balance, and we just couldn’t really settle in. When we did take care of the ball, we were able to get to the basket.”

“In the second half they came out, played harder than us, played with more energy, and then they obviously pushed us out of our own spots offensively,” said guard Francis Okwuosah. “It’s a great lesson for us to learn. We’ve got to be physical offensively and get to our spots, but they pushed us out and our offense suffered. And then they got out and ran.”

The Leathernecks shot 52.5% in the first half, hitting 13 field goals. Western Illinois was able to stay within single digits of the Hawkeyes through most of the half — Iowa’s biggest lead of the half was 39-28 with 1:37 to play.

“The positives today are we learned that we can play at this level,” Okwuosah said. “We belong at this level. We had a couple turnovers early on, we came back, we’re down eight at halftime, we learned we could play at this level. We just have to execute, get the little things correct, and put two halves together.”

“I was worried in the second half about us getting tired,” Boudreau said. “I just thought with the intensity of the game, it just wore us down.”

Isaiah Griffin led Western Illinois with 21 points. Tyran Cook added 10.

Iowa held Western Illinois guard Lucas Lorenzen, who had 25 points in Monday’s 80-75 loss at Radford, to just five points on 1 of 9 shooting.

“You could tell the game plan was to take him out,” Boudreau said. “And they were very physical with him coming off screens. They were just physical with him throughout the possession and and, and we could not get him post-ups or touches where he could be comfortable. It’s good for him. It’s good for him to be in this situation, the intensity of playing a high-major team.”

The Leathernecks continue their four-game road stretch to open the season, playing at CSU Bakersfield on Tuesday and at Cal Baptist on Friday.

“We scheduled this four-game stretch to put ourselves in a corner and see how we react,” Boudreau said. “We’ve got to get organized, and we’ll learn from this.”

Photo: Iowa’s Alvaro Folgueiras (left) defends against Western Illinois’ Isaiah Griffin in the first half of Friday’s game. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)