Don't miss out on any of our exclusive football, basketball and recruiting coverage. Sign up with TheHoosier.com here.

The Hoosiers' first game of 2023 started with high-flying emotions between the Indiana and the Iowa Hawkeyes as they both battled it out for 40 minutes on Thursday night. The back-and-forth game ended with the Hawkeyes pulling off a 21-point comeback to win 91-89 but the intensity was the main thing that ran through Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Multiple technical fouls and a near brawl at half court were just a few of the emotional moments that these two Big Ten opponents shared on the court.

With 53 seconds left on the clock in the second half, both benches started to swarm together after Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery exchanged words with Indiana assistant coach Yasir Rosemond. Immediately after the short-lived scuffle, the referees called a technical foul on McCaffery. However, seconds later got the same referee rescinded the foul and separated both teams.

Mike Woodson expressed his emotions after the game when asked about the clashing encounter with McCaffery and was all but pleased.

"I’m not even going to comment on that because that’s bullshit… that’s what it is. You can print that," Woodson said. "When you can allow coaches to come across half court into your space, that's bullshit. It is.

"He (the ref) did call the technical foul and he pulled it back, which was bullshit. The guy should’ve been thrown out of the God damn game."

At the time of Woodson’s comment, the Iowa press conference was going on at the same time but McCaffery was not asked about Woodson’s remarks. Although this was the climax moment between both teams, it wasn't the first time the Iowa coach got fired up on Thursday night. McCaffery received a technical foul for discussing a foul call eight minutes into the game which was one of the multiple times he had to be separated from the officiating crew.

Later in the first quarter, Jordan Geronimo was charged a technical foul which was overturned and McCaffery had to be dragged away by his assistant coaches. Not to mention, players on both sides had their fair share of words exchanged between themselves during and after the game.

Iowa was able to come back and win a much-needed game for their first conference win of the season pushing Indiana out of town with a sour taste in their mouth.

With coaches and players both exchanging heated moments, there's only one thing that both teams can do after all the commotion. Circle their calendars for Feb.28, when the Hawkeyes visit Assembly Hall.

----

• Talk about it inside The Hoops Forum or The Football Forum

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes

• Follow us on Twitter: @IndianaRivals

• Like us on Facebook.