Nicholas Baer out 3-4 weeks with finger injury

IOWA CITY — The Iowa men's basketball team will be without Nicholas Baer to start the 2017-18 season.

According to a release from Iowa, Baer broke a bone in his left pinkie finger during a weekend practice, and 'is expected to miss 3-4 weeks.' Baer's injury will not require surgery, the release said.

'Nicholas has played great in preseason practices and this is an unfortunate setback,' McCaffery said in the release. 'We expect Nicholas to make a full recovery and look forward to him rejoining his teammates on the court soon.'

The timetable for Baer's injury mean's he'll miss at least four games (if it's three weeks) and up to seven (if it's four). Should Baer be out more than three weeks, he'd miss the Big Ten/ACC Challenge game at Virginia Tech, and would miss the opening two conference games — Dec. 2 vs. Penn State and Dec. 4 at Indiana — as well as potentially the Iowa State game (Dec. 7) if it's more than four.

Baer had nine points and three rebounds on 3 of 5 shooting in 13 minutes of Iowa's exhibition win against Belmont Abbey. He was held scoreless on 0 of 2 shooting with no rebounds and no assists in Iowa's exhibition opener against William Jewell.

The Bettendorf product was the Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year last season after scoring 7.5 points per game as well as leading the Hawkeyes with 5.8 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 1.3 blocked shots. He also became one of four players in Iowa history to lead the team in blocks and steals in the same season.

Iowa opens its regular season Friday with an 8 p.m. tip against Chicago State.

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