Iowa 102, UMD 81: A tantalizing work in progress

The Iowa Hawkeyes made their official debut at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Friday night with a 102-81 victory over Division-II Minnesota-Duluthcoached by former Hawkeye Justin Wieck.

Payton Sandfort led all scorers with 23 points and was one of three Hawkeyes who finished 20th in the win. As a team, the Hawkeyes shot 59% and led by double digits 19-40 in the final possession.

“They are physically fit and are trained very well,” said head coach Fran McCaffery of the visiting Bulldogs. “Justin is doing a great job and we wanted to play against a team like that.”

“We could have made an appointment and developed a false sense of confidence about who we were,” McCaffery continued. “But they forced us to guard their picking actions. They forced us to play through contact. And we had to adapt as the game went on. So in that respect it was a very good game for us.”

1. A Big Three in the making? Sandfort led the Hawkeyes with 23 points, but was closely followed by Josh Dix (22 points, 9-12 FG) and Owen Freeman (21 points, 10-12 FG). Sandfort also contributed eight rebounds and five assists in the win.

Sandfort came awfully close to qualifying for the NBA draft this offseason, while Freeman is the reigning co-Big Ten Freshman of the Year. Dix's rise to this level of play began at the end of last season, and Friday's performance – a mix of shot creation, long-range shooting and aggressive perimeter defense – looked like another step towards joining Sandfort and Freeman in the senior squad.

Sandfort's overall play remains the best in the squad and was on full display on Friday. His shooting is quicker and quieter (mechanically) than ever before, and his passing and rebounding are good enough to hold opponents accountable at all times – on offense, defense and in transition.

Freeman made his first eight shots of the game en route to a 10-12 performance, and while rumors about his expanded perimeter game swirled in the offseason, he spent most of his day controlling the game against the undersized Bulldogs.

Freeman's increased power work was evident as he frequently outran the smaller Bulldogs on the block to create open looks at the rim.

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2. Very like… Despite a relatively close game for a D-II exhibition game – Iowa led by just nine points at halftime and never by more than 24 – the Hawkeyes looked like a team with better athleticism, depth and versatility than last season.

Aside from 6'1″ Brock Harding and 6'3″ Drew Thelwell, no Hawkeye rotation player is shorter than 6'6″ (Dix), and McCaffery showed he's comfortable going 10-deep in his rotation, like he already did – Very competitive first half. The second unit in particular offers an interesting mix of defense, driving and long-range shots:

– 6'3″ Drew Thelwell

– 6'7″ Pryce Sandfort

– 6'7″ Seydou Traore

– 6'8″ Cooper Cook

– 6'9″ Evan Brauns

Pryce Sandfort's 11 points – by far the most from the bench – all came in the second half, including his two three-pointers. Koch hit his first three-pointer of the game, but shot just 1-for-5 from the field overall, scoring four points. Still, Koch looks like an elite player on the court and will likely soon be fighting for more than the 14 minutes of playing time he earned in Friday's win.

3. …but it's far from a finished product. Minnesota-Duluth is no slouch for a D-II team — it won 26 games last year, advanced to the second round of the NCAA D-II tournament and returns all but one of its main rotation pieces from last season — but Even with the Bulldogs punching above their weight class, they stayed closer (and longer) to the Hawkeyes than they probably should have.

Ladji Dembele started at the 4 and made his only three-pointer of the game and finished with seven points in 21 minutes of play, but despite the progress he made as a freshman at 4 last season, he still has a long way to go a weak side defender; UMD was able to generate open looks at the rim that caught the frontline's attention with relative ease, and Dembele hasn't yet converted his vertical athleticism into a viable deterrent at the rim.

Harding and Thelwell combined for six turnovers in 32 minutes of play; That simply can't be a problem as the competition increases, especially since neither guard has shown the kind of productivity that makes high turnovers easier to digest. Thelwell, in particular, only played nine minutes, a surprise for a veteran guard who had a winning record in his last basketball appearance Morehead State.

Some aspects of the win are probably more noise than signal. Payton Sandfort shot 1-for-6 from downtown; There is little reason to believe that this will become a trend. Similarly, Iowa as a whole started 1-for-9 on three-point shots before finishing with a more respectable 7-for-22 (31%). Three-point shooting is inherently inconsistent, even for the best shooters in the world, and few of Iowa's attempts on Friday looked forced or ill-advised.

The fact that the Bulldogs collected seven offensive rebounds in the first half proved this some however, is a cause for concern; They finished the day with 10. Meanwhile, the physically impressive Freeman didn't get an offensive rebound until the start of the second half; However, he ended with three.

Freeman also finished the game with three turnovers and four fouls – after frequent foul trouble last season, he'll need more success to keep his stats clean if Iowa can rely on him down the stretch against tougher opponents.

Harding shot just 1-7 from the field, including 0-3 from distance. Its shape does look better, as he and McCaffery both suggested before the season began, but good-looking misses are still misses, even in exhibitions. Harding's effectiveness as a starting point guard will depend on it strong about whether opponents have to respect his long-range shooting when he gets the ball on the outside edge. If they can get out of the way of Iowa's primary ball handler and force him to drive into traffic to create opportunities, the offense simply won't be firing on all cylinders with him on the field.

But exhibitions are just that: exhibitions. None of those stats count, and as McCaffery said, the experienced, well-coached Bulldogs forced the young Hawkeyes to run through concepts that they'll see often against quality opponents this winter.

Additionally, while there are plenty of “if” questions on this team, not all of them need to come to fruition in Iowa for a quality rotation to emerge. Dix, Sandfort and Freeman are one of the most solid foundations McCaffery has had entering a season in his 15(!) years at Iowa, and Friday's game showed that they are vital to the development of the rest of the roster around them will be season.