By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa — And now it’s all Big Ten the rest of the way.

Iowa wrapped up its nonconference portion of its men’s basketball schedule with a 90-62 rout of UMass Lowell at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on Monday.

All that remains over the final two-plus months of the regular season is conference play, and this game was a chance to shake off some of the Christmas rust that accumulated from a five-day break.

Iowa (11-2) opened the game hitting eight of its first nine shots on the way to a 30-10 lead, then had stretches of stagnation later in the first half and in the second half that bothered first-year coach Ben McCollum.

“I thought we were pretty good to start, and then probably weren’t our best after that, which is kind of the Christmas thing,” McCollum said. “For a little while there we had a rough stretch. But that’s why you play that game, to try to improve and try to get the Christmas out of you.”

What’s left now is the last 18 games of the conference crucible — the Hawkeyes split their two-game early December taste of Big Ten play.

“It’s big boy time,” forward Alvaro Folgueiras said. “We’ve got to be ready for it — it’s going to be intense.”

“We learned a lot about ourselves and as a team,” said guard Bennett Stirtz, who led the Hawkeyes in this win with 22 points and eight assists. “But I don’t think we’ve done much yet, so we’ve got a lot to prove.”

The Hawkeyes, ranked 25th in the Associated Press poll, suffered just one loss in nonconference play — a 66-62 loss at No. 3 Iowa State. That defeat, and the 71-52 loss at Michigan State in the Big Ten opener, are the lone blemishes on the overall record heading into Saturday’s home game with UCLA.

“I think (the schedule) prepared us,” McCollum said. “I think we’ve gotten better now. I think guys have really improved. They’ve grown. Our two road games were fantastic games for us to play. They got us ready, and now we just got to carry it over into Big Ten play here Saturday.”

With the Hawkeyes on the break between semesters, McCollum has used the extra time to run two practices a day.

“A lot of the last two days, three days, was just try to regain our rhythm a little bit,” McCollum said. “We really didn’t do a whole lot from a major teaching perspective. It was just play a lot, scrimmage a lot. Get up and down, get your wind back, get a rhythm, play this game, get some film, and then get ourselves back dialed in for Saturday.

“We do two-a-days, but the second one is just shooting. Play shooting games, kind of goof around, have some fun with each other. It’s an opportunity to connect. And all you have is basketball — try to get better and see what happens.”

“We’re in the gym, we see (McCollum) a lot more, so it’s kind of annoying to see him all the time,” joked Stirtz, who is in his fourth season and third stop with his coach.

Stirtz, who reached the 500-assist mark for his career in this game, was one of four Hawkeyes who scored in double figures. Folgueiras and Cam Manyawu each had 14 points, and Tavion Banks added 12.

Iowa led 47-30 at halftime, then after UMass Lowell (5-10) got to within 13 points early in the season half, pulled away with a 12-2 run. The Hawkeyes led by as much as 33 points late in the game.

The Hawkeyes now are ready to face what’s ahead. Folgueiras, who transferred from Robert Morris to be a part of McCollum’s first season, said he’s ready.

“It’s why everyone joined the roster, for these kinds of games,” Folgueiras said.

Photo: Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz drives to the basket in Monday’s game. (Photo from Iowa Athletic Communications)