Pete Moe’s 35 points and 16 rebounds lifts Iowa City West

IOWA CITY - His stroke from the free-throw line reminds you a lot of his old man.

Pete Moe hit 11 of 13 free throws Tuesday night in his Iowa City West team’s 77-57 win over Linn-Mar. He’s an 85-percent shooter from the line in the early going of the boys’ basketball season.

Jeff Moe, if you remember back to the late 1980s, was a great shooter from the free-throw stripe and the 3-point arc for the Iowa Hawkeyes. He’s Pete’s dad.

The similarity in father and son’s games ends pretty much there. Dad was a 6-foot-4 guard, son is a 6-8 forward.

Son is an interior presence par excellence, someone who can post up and score, someone who also can dribble-drive into the lane and power to the basket.

He had 35 points and 16 rebounds in this game as West moved to 6-0.

“He’s just more skilled (than last season),” said West Co-Head Coach Steve Bergman. “He’s guarding better than he was. I mean, it’s still an area that’s got to get better, but he is guarding better. He’s creating for other guys, too. He catches it in the post, he’s not trying to make a move every time. If somebody is open, he’s hitting them. He’s a really, really good scorer, and I think he’s still got a lot of room to get even better.”

Moe moved to town last year from Indianapolis with his mom and dad. Jeff Moe admirably wanted to finish his degree at the University of Iowa, which he did last May.

But the family is still here because Pete wanted to play one more season at West under the demanding Bergman.

“Last year, I came out here straight out of Indiana and kind of got thrown into the fire, really,” Moe said. “I didn’t know how to play in Bergman’s system. Now I know that you can’t just do it all on your own. You’ve got to swing it to your teammates, and I’ve trusted my teammates this year that they’ll hit shots.

“Guys like Jack (McCaffery) and Savion (Taylor) and Kareem (Early) will get to the basket, and I trust them that they’ll help us win. I have faith in Bergy that he gets me better each and every day to help me reach my goal of playing Division I basketball. That’s what I want to achieve.”

Moe averaged 21.9 points in West’s disjointed-by-COVID, 13-game 2020-21 season. He’s at 26.8 through a half-dozen games this season.

He has one college offer right now in Division II Minnesota State. But, as he said, the goal is to play for a D-I school.

“Recruiting’s kind of slow right now because of the season,” Moe said. “But I feel like if I can keep playing how I am, getting 35 and 16 like tonight, and we keep winning ... That’s the most important thing, that we keep winning, then I should get what I want.”

West shot 59 percent from the field and made 6 of its 13 3-point attempts, pulling ahead by 14 points at halftime and going from there. The ball movement from the Trojans throughout most of this game was very good.

Savion Taylor added 13 points for West, with sophomore guard Jacob Koch hitting three 3-pointers for 9. 6-8 freshman forward Jack McCaffery (youngest son of Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery) came into this game second on the team in scoring at 14 points but was limited to just two here, though he did other good things, like passing the basketball.

West will be even better after Christmas when point guard Christian Barnes returns from a knee injury he has been rehabbing. Barnes is a three-year starter.

“We didn’t get to coach them last season,” Bergman said. “They made us play after five days, with a brand new team. It was pickup basketball. Then right when we started getting into a rhythm and maybe have enough time to teach them something, we got shut down for three weeks. So I don’t think any of the boys’ teams in Iowa City really got much out of last season.”

Linn-Mar (3-2) was coming off a big win last weekend over rival Cedar Rapids Kennedy . Freshman Davis Kern had a strong second half and led the Lions in scoring with 12 points.

Jayden Hill added 10.

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AT IOWA CITY

LINN-MAR (57): Jayden Hill 4-6 1-2 10, Davis Kern 5-7 0-0 12, Ike Mindrup 3-7 0-0 6, Jackson Severson 2-7 0-0 6, Jaxson Young 4-11 0-0 8, Jack Robertson 0-1 0-0 0, Ian Bettis 3-7 1-2 7, T.J. Jackson 2-3 0-0 4, Owen Olmstead 1-1 0-0 2, Jackson Edwards 1-2 0-0 2, Henry Read 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 25-52 2-4 57.

IOWA CITY WEST (77): Savion Taylor 5-6 1-2 14, Jack McCaffery 1-4 0-0 2, Pete Moe 12-21 11-13 35, Kareem Earl 2-6 4-6 8, Jacob Koch 3-4 0-0 9, Brady Simcox 2-2 0-0 5, Wyatt Dotson 0-0 2-2 2, Ben Hoefer 0-0 0-0 0, Noah DeSaulniers 0-0 0-0 0, John Conrads 1-1 0-0 3. Totals 26-44 18-23 77.

Halftime - West 41, Linn-Mar 27. 3-point goals - Linn-Mar 5-14 (Hill 1-3, Kern 2-2, Severson 2-5, Young 0-2, Bettis 0-1, Jackson 0-1), Iowa City West 6-13 (Taylor 2-2, McCaffery 0-2, Moe 0-3, Koch 3-4, Simcox 1-1, Conrads 1-1). Rebounds - Linn-Mar 24 (Young 6), West 27 (Moe 16). Total fouls - Linn-Mar 15, West 7. Fouled out - None. Turnovers - Linn-Mar 6, West 5.

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