Iowa Basketball: Mike Gesell Having a Career Year

The Iowa Basketball team is having a wildly successful 2015-16 season. Most of the credit can be given to scorers Jarrod Uthoff and Peter Jok, but Mike Gesell is quietly having his best year for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Mike Gesell is a native of South Sioux City, Nebraska. He was rated as a four star player by both Rivals and ESPN. ESPN had him as their 75th player on their Top 100. He wasn’t heavily recruited, but had interest from Creighton and Nebraska along with Iowa. Gesell came to Iowa in head coach, Fran McCaffery’s, third year. After going 29-37 in his first two seasons, McCaffery and company went 25-13 in 2012-13 and made it all the way to the championship of the National Invitation Tournament.

Since then, Iowa has made two straight NCAA Tournament appearances and they are on their way to a potential number one seed in this years tournament.

What a turnaround.

More from Dear Old Gold

You can thank Uthoff and Jok for a lot of the success, but Gesell has been the motor. As of right now, he’s averaging career bests in rebounds (3.5), assists (6.3), field goal percentage (42%), and three point percentage (37%). He was averaging a career best in points per game, but has scored just 24 points over the last five games to drop below his freshman mark of 8.7 ppg.

He recorded his first career double-double in a win over the Nebraska Cornhuskers back on January 5th with 22 points and 10 assists. Just seven days before, he scored a career high 25 points in a win over the then number one ranked Michigan State Spartans. In Iowa’s comeback win over the Purdue Boilermakers on the road back on January 2nd, Gesell recorded 7 points, 7 rebounds, and 7 assists.

He was magnificent for Iowa’s most important stretch of games. Over the past two games he has struggled a bit, but when you’re playing Northwestern and Penn State you can afford to have down games. Fortunately, when Gesell has struggled, it’s been Anthony Clemmons who has stepped up and played well.

Next: Football Recruiting: Iowa's Top 5 Gets on NSD

Mike has struggled for most of the year with late game free throws, which is something that he needs to shake off because he is a player Iowa needs on the floor late in games. If he isn’t making free throws, it’ll be difficult for Fran to keep him on the court at the end of close games.

That has been the only flaw in an otherwise flawless senior year for the point guard. Iowa will head to Champaign, IL to take on the Illinois Fighting Illini tomorrow. While Illinois hasn’t had a successful year, Gesell will need to be sharp as the leader of this team in an always important road game.

Those two teams will tip off tomorrow at noon CT inside the State Farm Center – which is really weird to say because it’ll always be Assembly Hall to me. The game will be televised on the Big Ten Network.

Stay locked into Dear Old Gold for constant coverage of the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Home/Iowa Basketball