With balance and depth, Iowa men’s basketball team filled European baskets

Dwelling on statistics from a college basketball team’s overseas tour is useful only to a degree given the nature of the games and the opponents.

However, there are always things that jump out and can be seen as possible harbingers for the season ahead. Such as:

1. Payton Sandfort is ready for his close-up.

The junior wing not only averaged 19 points over Iowa’s three games in France and Spain, but 11 rebounds. He made 12 of 27 3-point tries.

This likely will be the first season in the last five in which Iowa doesn’t have a player average 20 points. It’s not a common thing to have one any year in the college game, but the Hawkeyes have had one in each of the last four seasons.

This year, the points will be more of a community thing. A whopping seven averaged double-figures in Europe as the team averaged 116 points. The opponents weren’t Michigan State, Maryland and Purdue, but 116 is 116.

Sandfort can be expected to take a jump upward from his 10.3 ppg and 4.1 rebounds of last season. The guy’s a player, not just a scorer.

2. Freshmen Owen Freeman and Brock Harding of Moline, Ill., aren’t going to do much waiting to be part of the mix.

Freeman had double-digit rebounds in each of the three games. Do it once, and maybe a big part of it is the ball coming to a player. Do it three straight times, and it’s the player going to the ball.

Freeman averaged 12.3 boards to go with 10.3 points. The Hawkeyes may not need a lot of offense from him in his first season, but they could sure use the rebounding.

Harding averaged 11.3 points, with a consistent 10, 12 and 12. He also averaged five assists over the first two games.

3. Tony Perkins is serious.

At the end of last season, Perkins said he wanted to become Iowa’s all-time best guard as a senior. It’s more than a high goal, it’s almost unattainable.

But he means it. He averaged 16.3 points on the trip. Though one might expect point guard minutes to be carved up among multiple players and Perkins to be used off the ball to free him up for more scoring, he still had more assists (12) in Europe than anyone else.

4. Transfer forward Ben Krikke apparently is blending in quickly.

The former Valparaiso forward averaged 16.3 points and 8.3 rebounds on the trip.

Krikke averaged 19.4 points and 5.9 rebounds last season for Valpo, and you wouldn’t expect him to match that on an Iowa team with other proven scorers. However, this could be a more-significant addition than people are realizing.

The 6-foot-9, 230-pound Krikke has been playing and producing a lot in Division I basketball for four years. He averaged 12 points as a sophomore. He has made 54.1 percent of his field goal tries in his career and started 89 games over the last three seasons.

5. Josh Dix and Dasonte Bowen could emerge this season.

Bowen averaged 12.3 points and Dix 11.0 in Europe. Dix made 8 of 14 3-pointers and had 11 assists.

The players mostly watched games from the sideline as last season grew late. Both did have one particular game as freshmen that tantalized.

Bowen’s was when he scored 12 points in 17 minutes in a loss to Duke in New York. Dix had 10 points and five assists in 31 minutes in Iowa’s overtime home win over Michigan in January.

All that said, it’s unclear how the Hawkeyes will defend Purdue’s Zach Edey (22.3 ppg, 12.9 rpg last season). The good news, though, is that Iowa only plays the Boilermakers once.

Comments: (319) 398-8440; mike.hlas@thegazette.com