The Upper Iowa men's basketball team had all 14 Peacocks in uniform see the floor in Wednesday's 116-66 victory over Iowa Wesleyan. Every player scored for the Peacocks, led by a career-high from Luke Lenhart, who scored 20 in the first half and ended with 25 in limited minutes in the second. UIU set new season-highs in points (116), field goals made (44), shooting percentage (44-77, 57.1%), three point shooting percentage (13-26, 50%), rebounds (49) and assists (24).

Head Coach Brooks McKowen preaches to his players that the first five minutes are critical and UIU took care of those first five minutes, coming out with all systems going against the Tigers. The Peacocks started the game red hot, converting on 8 of their first 9 shots and jumping out a 25-5 lead four and a half minutes into the first half. Upper Iowa stretched their lead to 30 late in the half and eventually went into the halftime break up by 28, 58-30.

"When you play these non-conference games, there's the opportunity to not be prepared, to not come out and not get better in the night," said McKowen. "Our guys came out those first five minutes and executed. It set the tone for the rest of the night."  

The Peacocks started the second half the same way they started the first: on fire. UIU shot 8-of-12 in the first five minutes of period number two, outscoring the Tigers 19-4 in that stretch. UIU's largest lead of the night came on a Jessie Big Knife trifecta that pushed the margin to 51 with three minutes left. A Cole Kruger layup with 27 seconds left capped the scoring and gave the Peacocks a 50-point victory.

"Offensively, we took the right shot tonight," said McKowen. "We had 24 assists and 12 turnovers, which means you're sharing the basketball and not forcing shots. If a guy is open, we expect him to shoot the basketball. But if he's not, we expect him to create for his teammates and our guys did a good job of that tonight."

This was the first time the Peacocks had reached the 100-point plateau since last February, when UIU defeated Augustana 104-100 in overtime. The last time Upper Iowa hit 100 points in regulation was 368 days ago, or Nov. 23, 2013, when the Peacocks beat William Jewel College 101-88.

It was a career day for many Peacocks as UIU had five players in double figures. Lenhart's 25 was a new career-high for him and season-high for any Peacock.

"We've been waiting to see Luke shoot like this in a game," said McKowen. "He did a great job of getting stronger in the summer and cleaned up his ball handling so he can create and get by guys. He's more than a stand-still shooter now and a game like tonight boosts his confidence, even though if you know Luke, he's always been a confident shooter."

Kruger was among three players who scored their first points at UIU and finished with 10, while Big Knife added 6 points and Brock Babcock had 2 points. Freshman Mitch Eighme had his first career double-digit scoring night, scoring 10 points, and Jace Hanna continued his stretch of games with 10-plus points to start the season with 10 of his own. Jordan Hay dropped 13 points to round out the Peacocks in double figures. Turner Wentzien and Jernell Hughes set new career-highs with 7 points each, while Charles Miller had a bucket and a free throw, scoring 3 points.

"Tonight we got better. Every day at practice we expect to get better and take a step forward, and in every game we expect to do the same thing," said McKowen. "We'll watch the film and see what we can improve on, but we feel like we are where we need to be heading into the conference season."

Upper Iowa opens Northern Sun Conference play on Saturday with a game at Winona State. The game will be part of a women's/men's double-header, with the Peacock women's basketball game tipping off at 4 p.m. and the men's game starting after, tentatively scheduled for 6 p.m.