Hlas: This year's Prime Time League flavors: Jack Nunge and Luka Garza

NORTH LIBERTY — Time flies in college basketball.

At this time last year, Tyler Cook was a freshman-to-be at Iowa and all the rage in the Prime Time League. The 6-foot-9, chiseled power forward from St. Louis immediately became the most-intriguing freshman Fran McCaffery had ever signed as Iowa's men's basketball coach. His PTL performances got a lot of people stirred up around here.

A year later, Cook is one of the Hawkeyes' veterans. He averaged 12.3 points and 5.3 rebounds and made 55.4 percent of his field goal attempts last season. He had 21 points and 10 rebounds in a late February 83-69 upset win at Maryland, prompting Terrapins coach Mark Turgeon to say 'Cook just dominated the game.'

Cook closed the season by averaging 17 points in two NIT games, and he'll start the coming season with a streak of 18 consecutive made field goal tries.

So does the PTL's sun rise and set on Cook again this summer? No. Two 6-foot-11 freshmen centers are the centers of the league's universe. Luka Garza has averaged 29 points and 14 rebounds over his three PTL games and made a lot of favorable first impressions and second impressions.

Yes, here comes the inevitable disclaimer that the PTL is a summer league, and summer league ball isn't college basketball. But a recent high school grad averaging 29 and 14? Yowsah!

Then there's Jack Nunge. He has arrived here from Newburgh, Ind., in the southwest corner of the state. His team played against Cook's on Sunday in PTL play at the North Liberty Community Center.

I came to watch Cook. I stayed to watch Nunge.

Nunge was a matchup headache for Cook and everyone on Cook's team. The rookie tossed in 40 points on a variety of shots from 3-point distance inward.

If you hadn't come to the gym knowing he was a freshman, you wouldn't have guessed he was one. His 10-foot jumpers were money. He showed good defensive instincts. He can go to his left with the ball. He had six assists, two of them spot-on passes from the top of the arc to Hawkeye guard Brady Ellingson for easy layups.

About the only thing Nunge forced in his team's overtime loss was a long 3-point heave in the last second of overtime that caromed off the rim and denied his club a victory in one of the more-entertaining PTL games of recent vintage.

Now, Nunge wasn't facing any 6-11 Big Ten-caliber centers on the other team. Purdue's Isaac Haas, for instance, awaits several months down the road. Still, Nunge has 105 points in three PTL games. Only Northern Iowa guard Juwan McCloud has more, with 106.

'(Nunge's) skill set probably gets me used to guarding different types of players,' Cook said after Sunday's game. 'He shot the hell out of the ball today. He can shoot. He can put it on the floor, he can post up.

'I'm glad to have him.'

Ellingson, a junior-to-be, was no slouch himself Sunday with 30 points and 6-of-9 shooting from 3-point distance. He is the only Hawkeye who has Nunge for a PTL teammate.

'Me and him are getting some good chemistry together,' Ellingson said.

'I'm just really impressed with him. He works really hard. He's a great scorer, a great teammate, can pretty much score from anywhere on the floor.

'He's very skilled, he's confident when he gets it, and you know he's going to make the right play. … He can do it all. He's kind of like a guard in a big man's body. He can dribble the ball behind his back, cross over, then he's got an inside game and can shoot outside as well.'

Yes, yes, tap the brakes. It's summer, not the grind of February. The biggest players typically have the most growing pains as freshmen.

We also saw Sports Illustrated's website listed its top 20 NBA prospects for 2018 this week. Fifteen are freshmen-to-be or teenage Europeans. The other five will be sophomores. None are Nunge. Or Cook.

Yet, it looks like Iowa's front line is going to be just fine this winter. Maybe a lot better than that, actually.