Iowa rolls in exhibition and learns along the way

IOWA CITY - There's nothing clean about an early-season men's basketball exhibition and if there is, a team didn't challenge itself enough.

Iowa's 92-51 tarring of NAIA Northwood (Fla.) on Sunday gave the Hawkeyes everything they would want entering the regular season. Iowa played a ton of players in different combinations and enjoyed some level of success. The Hawkeyes also faced a veteran team with a championship pedigree and coaching legend Rollie Massimino on the sideline. That led to early mistakes and mishaps on both ends of the court. That's something from which Iowa can learn.

Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery bemoaned the lack of energy early from his first unit and liked the effort from his reserves. However, the turnovers and sloppy passing slowed any fawning optimism the fifth-year Iowa coach might have expressed afterward.

'The thing that disappointed me was when we got (the lead) to 12, it went from 12 to 6,” McCaffery said. 'It's got to go from 12 to 18, and that I think was the disappointing thing. If you look back on the first half, I didn't really like the start, but I didn't really like that stretch. I think we softened a little bit defensively, and that's the challenge of this team. We don't soften at all, and that was evident in the second half.”

True, 11 turnovers and 12-point lead cut in half on an 8-2 run were downers late in the first half. Iowa wasn't perfect in the second half, but the team was more crisp at both ends of the floor. Iowa soared to a 19-2 run over the half's first seven minutes. Junior Jarrod Uthoff was asserted himself offensively and scored nine of Iowa's first 11 points. Uthoff, who scored 15 and grabbed seven rebounds, had a hand in the other basket, dishing down low to Aaron White for a dunk.

Overall Iowa's sparse two-rebound edge at halftime multiplied into a 21-rebound advantage by game's end. The Hawkeyes outscored Northwood 44-16 in the paint, 29-9 off turnovers and 57-7 in points off the bench. The second-half margin was 53-19.

'After the first 10 minutes I thought we could really hang in there a little bit,” said Massimino, who guided Villanova to the 1985 NCAA title. 'But we made some shots and after that the defense kind of fell apart because we tried a couple of different things and then it just didn't happen.”

Iowa opened with junior Anthony Clemmons running the point and junior Mike Gesell sliding from point to shooting guard. Usual shooting guards Peter Jok (ankle) and Josh Oglesby (hip) had missed time in fall camp, and Clemmons earned the nod with tough defensive play. That culminated for Clemmons in a pair of steals on back-to-back possessions in the first half. Clemmons played 15 minutes, scored three points, had two assists, four steals and only one turnover. He also defended first-team NAIA All-American guard Chris Solomon and held him to four points on 2-of-8 shooting.

'I think that's what really separates me from everybody else on the team,” Clemmons said. 'I can really get after it on defense. Definitely. Mad. I think that's what helped me and being consistent with it. I think that's what got me the spot.”

Oglesby drilled three 3-pointers for nine points in 20 minutes. Jok, a sophomore, scored 16 points in 17 minutes. He also grabbed eight boards and had three assists.

'(Jok is) a guy that we look at that could eventually be the starter, but right now Clemmons has been the most consistent guy from the opening day of practice until now, and he earned that position,” McCaffery said.

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