By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

Owen Freeman’s big game on Sunday cost him some dental work, but also got him another Big Ten weekly honor.

The Iowa freshman center was named the conference’s men’s basketball player of the week for the eighth time this season, the second most in conference history behind the 12 won by Ohio State’s Jared Sullinger in the 2010-11 season.

Freeman had 17 points and 14 rebounds in the 90-85 win over Minnesota on Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, but suffered a chipped front tooth late in the first half.

“It shows how tough he is,” guard Payton Sandfort said. “He played like a hockey player today. He feels like a hockey player now. I don’t know — I think we should keep his tooth like that.”

Freeman said he was hit in the mouth with an inadvertent elbow from Minnesota’s Parker Fox on the final shot of the first half, just seconds after Freeman’s steal and dunk that got the Hawkeyes within 51-38 heading into halftime.

Freeman said he knew what happened once he spit out the broken piece. Freeman showed his tooth to the media after the game, and Sandfort had to get in a little jab.

“It looks so stupid,” he joked.

“I know it happened right away,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said. “He opened his mouth. Just spit it out and keep playing. That’s what you do. I wasn’t surprised that’s what he did.”

Freeman struggled early in the game, not scoring until 5 1/2 minutes were left in the half. But he scored 11 of Iowa’s last 13 points of the half.

“The impressive thing for him today was, he didn’t get off to a good start,” McCaffery said. “I jumped up a little bit, but I do that because he’s that good. He knows that I know he’s that good. I challenged him to be that guy. And he came right back. And you saw what happened after that.

“I’m not taking full credit for it. He did it. But he needed to be challenged at that moment. And it’s impressive as a young guy that he was able to perform like he did. It speaks to how special he is.”

Freeman had nine points in Iowa’s loss at Penn State on Thursday, but he was 4-for-4 shooting.

Freeman leads the Big Ten’s freshmen in rebounds (151), blocks (41) and steals (26), while ranking second in points (261) and field goal percentage (.643). His blocks total ranks third nationally among freshmen.

Photo: Iowa’s Owen Freeman smiles to show off his chipped tooth after Sunday’s win over Minnesota. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)