By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Iowa’s men’s basketball game against Xavier on Friday felt like the first measuring stick for the Ben McCollum era as soon as it came out on the schedule.

An early-season game against a Big East team was expected to be a good test for McCollum’s first team as the Hawkeyes’ coach.

The 81-62 win over the Musketeers at Carver-Hawkeye Arena gave another look into the identity of the Hawkeyes, even though there is still much to learn about them.

An 18-4 run over the final 5:45 of the first half gave Iowa (3-0) some separation from the Musketeers (2-2) with a 45-29 halftime lead, then the Hawkeyes controlled the second half with strong defense and a rebounding advantage that they’ll need when they get into Big Ten play.

“We battled today,” said guard Bennett Stirtz, who played the entire game for the second time this season and finished with a game-high 21 points while adding eight rebounds.

McCollum mentioned again that the Hawkeyes are a “work in progress,” and probably will be all season. But this is a team that can defend — Iowa held Xavier to 39% shooting, 24.2% in 3-pointers — and the 41-24 rebounding margin was all about effort, McCollum said.

“We feel like that’s a controllable thing,” said McCollum, whose team has outrebounded its first three opponents by a plus-5 average margin. “And in the Big Ten, if you don’t rebound, you’re not going to win any games. So you have to make sure you’re getting the 50-50 balls and getting after it.”

Cam Manyawu led the Hawkeyes with nine rebounds. Alvaro Folgueiras, saddled with first-half foul trouble, came back to finish with eight rebounds. Tavion Banks added five rebounds to go with his 13 points.

“Like I said, we battled,” Stirtz said. “Alvaro, Cam, Tavion, they were dogs down there, and it felt like we got every board, which helps a lot.”

The Hawkeyes seemed out of sorts early, with three turnovers in their first four possessions — Xavier was just as bad, with three turnovers in its first three possessions — and never really got settled in until that late run to end the half.

Xavier’s lineup had one change from Monday’s 87-68 loss to Santa Clara — Jovan Milicevic replaced Anthony Robinson as a starter, giving the Musketeers another outside shooter.

“It was a pretty slow start,” Stirtz said. “I thought we were overthinking it. They changed lineups, that was part of it. We were overthinking that, and they played a lot of shooters. But we adjusted, and I thought we came out good in the second part of the first half.”

“I thought our kids, to start, had a lot of slippage — we call it game slippage,” McCollum said. “They were excited about their first Power 5 competition. We had some uncharacteristic turnovers, just some missed execution on some things defensively. We calmed down after about that 8-10 minute stretch, and then we were able to build a big lead.”

Iowa led by as much as 22 points in the second half, but only outscored the Musketeers 36-33 in the half.

“Just kind of hung on,” McCollum said. “Probably should have been a little bit more impose-your-will in the second half. But all in all, good game, and proud of our guys.”

The Hawkeyes got 50 points inside as Xavier took away Iowa’s 3-point shooting. Iowa was just 3-of-11 in 3-pointers, but consistently attacked the basket with the openings in the Musketeers’ defense.

“I feel like any screen we set was an advantage for us,” said guard Kael Combs, who played 32 minutes and scored 11 points, including 7-of-7 on free throws. ”So as soon as you set a screen, you’re just trying to get downhill and play two-on-one. Ultimately that led to me getting downhill and getting in the paint and getting fouled or a shot.”

“Offensively, we were getting it going, hitting our reads quick,” Stirtz said. “They were switching a little bit too, so we went to the same play, like, five times in a row, which was working.”

The first test was out of the way, and the final analysis belonged to McCollum.

“I thought all in all, we gave some effort (defensively) and got big defensive rebounds,” he said. “Our ball screen coverage wasn’t great, partly because they played a little different lineup than we expected, but we did guard the ball. I thought we won a lot of our one-on-one matchups. I thought our activity was pretty good, we got back in transition for the most part. 

“All in all, it’s a solid day. Not our best, but we’re getting better.”

Photo: Iowa guard Bennett Stirtz (left) drives past Xavier guard Malik Messina-Moore in the first half of Friday’s game. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)