By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY — Fran McCaffery knew he had plenty of options on his roster this season.

Three games into the season, the Iowa men’s basketball coach has been missing at least one of those options.

Maybe soon, perhaps as soon as Friday’s game against Washington State in Moline, Ill., McCaffery will have every button to push.

Tuesday’s 96-77 win over South Dakota in the final game of the Kenny Arnold Classic multi-team event was all about getting everyone involved, and everyone available did something.

“That’s what the real good teams do,” McCaffery said.

It was a little bit of addition and subtraction before the game. Seydou Traore, who missed the first two games with a foot injury, was back. Owen Freeman, the reigning Big Ten freshman of the year, was out with an illness.

Then Payton Sandfort, Iowa’s leading scorer and rebounder in the first three games, got into first-half foul trouble — he would eventually foul out — and starter Ladji Dembele also ran into a little bit of foul problems in the second half.

And, the Hawkeyes struggled in the first half, somewhat sleepwalking — “WAKE UP!” McCaffery yelled at them during one timeout — to a 42-36 halftime lead.

So, McCaffery went Johnny Wholebench in this game. Senior Even Brauns played almost six minutes in the first half. Fourth-year junior center RIley Mulvey, who saw just three minutes of time last week, played almost 8 ½ minutes in the second half. Freshman Cooper Koch logged almost 16 ½ minutes. Guard Carter Kingsbury got almost five minutes.

“Somebody else steps up and plays well,” McCaffery said. “They were all great.”

Iowa held a 40-37 rebounding edge, a 40-36 points-in-the-paint edge, and got 37 points off the bench.

There was plenty of scoring — Josh Dix had 23 points, Sandfort and Traore each had 12, Dembele and fifth-year guard Drew Thelwell had 11.

The pieces that McCaffery has been talking about since the summer seem to fit.

OK, it is November, and it was South Dakota, a pesky Summit League team that won three games last week. Big Ten play seems far away — actually, it’s a little less than a month before Northwestern comes to Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the December 3 conference opener — and the Hawkeyes have bigger and better nonconference tests coming.

But what McCaffery has seen in these opening two weeks is what he expected — a deep, cohesive group where everyone contributes something.

This was the first regular-season look at Traore, a sophomore transfer from Manhattan who showed no ill effects from his layoff last week. He played 22 minutes, scored 12 points on 5-of-9 shooting — 2-of-5 in 3-pointers — and had four rebounds and two blocked shots..

“Amazing,” Traore said when he was asked how he felt. “I just want to give glory to God for letting me come back from this injury. Feels great to have a good win under my belt. First game feels great.”

Traore was perfectly comfortable.

“That’s one of his greatest strengths,” McCaffery said. “You can’t speed him up — he plays at his pace. He makes plays for other people. He makes plays for himself, but he almost, I think, appreciates making plays for others more, and he always has his head up. He never panics. And boy, he was spectacular in recognizing when to go, when not to go, when to move it, when to bring it.”

Traore said it was difficult sitting out.

“You never want to sit out,” he said. “You always want to be there, be there with your teammates. You put a lot of work in together.”

Traore and Thelwell were in McCaffery’s shopping cart out of the NCAA’s transfer portal in the spring. They each had their strengths — Traore was long and athletic, Thelwell a stabilizing guard who was the winningest player in Morehead State history.

“They’re really smart and they’re really tough, and they both have character,” McCaffery said. “They came here, wanted to make an impact, wanted to play at this level, and they’re both doing it incredibly successfully.”

Dix said they made an immediate impression.

“Seydou’s athleticism and his versatility really helps our team,” Dix said. “He can play ‘2’ through ‘4’. He was handling the ball against the press, he can rebound and guard other ‘4’ men. So he can do a lot.

“Drew, you know, he’s just a leader. He can do everything out there, just like a floor general can, when we’re out there screwing up. He just kind of gets us together and leads us.”

The problem that will come is getting everyone consistent minutes. Some buttons will get pushed more, some at different times.

It’s a good problem to have, and it’s good that even at this early point in the season, McCaffery can find the options to solve it.

Photo: Iowa’s Drew Thelwell dunks in the second half of Tuesday’s game against South Dakota. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)