By Hawk Fanatic

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The only real risk in playing an opponent that has no real chance of winning is the risk of injury.

The Iowa men’s basketball team experienced that misfortune in Tuesday’s 110-77 thrashing of USC Upstate at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Iowa bolted to a 14-0 lead and the game was never competitive from that point on.

Upstate had no answer for Iowa sophomore forward Owen Freeman, who scored 10 of Iowa’s first 14 points and made his first six field-goal attempts.

Iowa led 55-28 at halftime and shot 56.4 percent from the field in the first half.

Iowa had seven players that scored at least five points in the first half.

But now the downside to Tuesday’s beat-down; sophomore forward Seydou Traore turned his ankle with 11 minutes, 24 seconds left in the first half and had to be helped off the court.

The 6-foot-7 high-flying Manhattan College transfer appeared to be in considerable pain, and he put no weight on his right foot as he was taken off the court to be further examined.

“It’s a bad sprain,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said on the Learfield post-game radio show. “So, you hope it’s a week or a few extra days than two or two-and-a-half weeks, three weeks. We don’t know.”

Iowa also played without senior forward Even Brauns and freshman forward Cooper Koch, but it didn’t matter because this game was a mismatch in every sense of the word.

It was a chance for Iowa to get a sure win, and a chance for Upstate to make some money.

Sophomore point guard Brock Harding recorded a double-double with a career-high 20 points, 10 assists and four steals.

The Moline, Illinois native has picked up his scoring in recent games, the result of hard work.

“All the coaches tell me I’m one of the hardest workers they’ve ever been around  so trust what I’ve put in and just go out there and have the confidence that I’m one of the best players on the court,” Harding said on the Big Ten Network post-game interview. “As the season has gone on, I feel like I’ve gained that confidence more and more with each game.”

Sophomore forward Owen Freeman finished with 17 points, with most of his scoring coming in the early minutes of the game.

Iowa had five players that scored in double figures as graduate point guard Drew Thelwell, junior guard Josh Dix and senior center Riley Mulvey scored, 15, 14 and 11 points, respectively.

Upstate finally scored its first points on a three with 15:46 left in the first half.

However, by that point, the rout was on, and the only real drama was how big would Iowa’s margin of victory be, and how severe is Traore’s injury.

Iowa improved to 6-1 and now heads into early Big Ten play with Northwestern up next in the conference opener on Tuesday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

Upstate fell to 2-7.