WASHINGTON — One down and many, many more games to go for Cooper Koch.

The Iowa basketball recruit made his season debut with Metamora on Tuesday night at the 18th annual Kevin Brown Memorial Tournament of Champions. Ironically enough, the Peoria Notre Dame transfer faced his former team, coming away with a 64-45 victory.

“If you’re not nervous before a game like this then you don’t love basketball,” the 6-foot-8 senior forward said, “because it’s games like these that you live for, playing against your old team. … First game of the season. Playing (in front of) a big crowd like this, it was awesome.”

How Iowa recruit Cooper Koch played vs. his old school Notre Dame

Koch finished tied for team-high scoring honors, putting in 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting as a packed Torry Gymnasium looked on.

Ten of his points came in the final 4:44 of the third quarter. He finished on a feed in the post from Tyler Mason, assisted on a Matthew Zobrist (17 points) layup and knocked down a 3-pointer.

Another Koch triple from the right corner, then a buzzer-beating bucket off the glass wrapped up the all-stater’s night.

Cooper Koch: Elite Peoria basketball recruit transfers to state champion Metamora

“He fits in like he’s been there forever,” Metamora coach Danny Grieves said. “He’s a great kid. He’s so unselfish as a player. He’s got a great IQ, and he just wants to succeed and does a great job fitting in with our guys.”

Added Koch, “It’s a really easy system to fit in with. If you play hard and you play smart, you’re going to find a role.”

Transferring to Metamora from Notre Dame

After playing his first three seasons at PND, Koch and his family moved to Metamora in August. Just four months have passed, but the ESPN Top 100 recruit seems to be gelling quite nicely with his new team.

Just ask Metamora point guard Mason, the reigning Journal Star player of the year, how well they complement each other.

“It’s nice having Cooper,” the 6-foot-2 senior guard said. “That was the first game for him back, revenge game for him. It was pretty cool.

“We both pass to the open (player). We both shoot when we’re open. We have great camaraderie … That transition has been really great for him. He’s fitting in really good and it’s really good to have.”

Metamora basketball finding its rhythm

Mason, who scored nine points with a trio of 3-pointers against PND, gets the same praise from his new teammate.

“(Tyler) hounds people on defense,” said Koch, who battled for most of the game with former classmate and Belmont signee Eoin Dillon (18 points). “He’s impossible to get around. I wouldn’t want to catch him in the open court because he’s going to dunk on you.”

Despite a national ranking and a 33-game win streak following the victory over the Irish, Grieves is looking for daily improvement from his team. Core guys like Tyson Swanson, Drew Tucker and Ethan Kizer have all graduated from last season’s Class 3A state championship run.

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This leaves returning starter Luke Hopp as well as Zobrist, Ashton Grieves, Nick Walker and Kendrick Schaffrin all being looked to expand their contributions.

“We’re definitely a work in progress,” Danny Grieves said. “We’re not as far along as we were at this time last year, but we had some really key guys coming back — three and four-year starters. It’s kind of a new team pushed together that they’ll have to find their own way.

“I think we’ll get there.”

There’s also very little concern on the players’ end.

“We’re not worried about anything,” Mason said. “We got more practices coming and once we get solid, then we’ll be tough to beat.”

Adam Duvall is a Journal Star sports reporter. Email him at aduvall@pjstar.com. Follow him on Twitter @AdamDuvall.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Iowa recruit Cooper Koch of Metamora faces old team Peoria Notre Dame