By Blake Dowson
The first night of the Prime Time League flashed what the future of Iowa basketball might look like, and it flashed quite brightly.
Incoming freshman Tyler Cook and redshirt freshman Isaiah Moss posted a few of the best shows of the night, and the Iowa players as a whole performed well.
Granted, the Hawkeyes in each game should be the dominant players, playing against athletes from smaller schools, but how the Hawkeyes did their damage was impressive.
Cook was the headliner for opening night with senior All-Big Ten player Peter Jok being sidelined with a minor foot injury. Cook was the co-leading scorer on the night, dropping 27 points on 10-of-19 shooting.
The St. Louis product was 9-of-12 inside the arc and took advantage of his athleticism to get some easy buckets around the rim. Cook was a less-than-impressive 1-of-7 from behind the 3-point line, but glass-half-full people will say making one 3 is a good sign, because Cook wasn’t brought in as a Stretch 4.
He won’t take seven 3s per game in the regular season, but if he could learn to knock down one or two every once in a while, it would help head coach Fran McCaffery’s offense if other teams had to respect him from deep.
But Cook’s dunks had the people excited. He plays above the rim as easily as anyone has for Iowa in the past couple years, and it’s where he excels. Cook seems to be the ultimate hustle guy, content with getting rebounds, dunks, and setting screens to get other players open.
Moss, a player for whom Iowa fans have high expectations but haven’t seen play all that much because of a redshirt season a year ago, filled up the scoring column although he didn’t shoot particularly well.
He has a good looking stroke, and the off shooting night was just that— an off night. The form is there, and he will hit his fair share of shots. He was able to score in ways other than the jump shot, and that was the encouraging thing for Hawkeye fans.
Freshman Jordan Bohannon was yet another 20-point scorer, dropping 27 points on 7-of-11 shooting behind the arc. The shooting ability from Bohannon was expected because of his bloodline, but he seems to be an extremely crafty point guard as well. He has a great feel for the game.
Sophomores Nicholas Baer and Ahmad Wagner were their same-old selves, doing the intangibles to help their teams.
Both recorded double-doubles, Baer with 20 points and 11 rebounds and Wagner with 14 points and 11 rebounds. Baer finds himself in a different role just about every season, and that makes him intriguing. He went from being a high-school center to a swing-forward role player last season, and he will be relied on to score more this year.
Junior Dom Uhl showed up looking thicker than last year, in a good way. He has put on weight in the right areas and attacked the rim with a purpose.
Freshman Cordell Pemsl didn’t get to play very many minutes after getting poked in the eye early, and as noted earlier, Jok didn’t play at all.
Play will resume on Thursday in North Liberty for Week 2.