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Iowa's last warmup before the Big Ten season went pretty much as planned, as the Hawkeyes drubbed lowly Tennessee Tech, 85-63. Peter Jok led all scorers with 21 points, and Nicholas Baer set a second-straight career high with the Hawkeyes with 19 points on 8-10 shooting from the field.
Jarrod Uthoff, who was bizarrely and repeatedly referred to as a "preseason All-American" by announcer Shon Morris (Uthoff was one of 10 preseason All-B1G players, but that's it), chipped in 13 points in limited action, as Fran McCaffery let his bench get plenty of time in the yawner. Iowa was up 43-20 at the break, and Tech never got closer than 19 points in the second half.
We'll see more of Baer in the Big Ten season; not only is he meriting these minutes with solid play, but the role of "stretch four off the bench" is wide open with Dale Jones out for the season with a knee injury. If Baer wants to continue hitting 80% of his shots, that'd be fun and ideal, but even if his production regresses to "mere mortal" levels, his versatility opens up a lot of options for Fran and the offense.
"I thought we handled business tonight. We are confident walking into the Big Ten and with an identity." -Anthony Clemmons
— Iowa Basketball (@IowaHoops) December 23, 2015
Other than that, not much to say about this one. KenPom predicted an 87-66 victory; that was pretty close. Iowa closes out the non-conference season at 9-3, and mighty Michigan State comes to town in a week. That'll be fun.