Iowa Basketball: European Trip a Smashing Success
With less than three months until the start of the 2017-2018 men’s basketball season, the Hawkeyes were able to get their youthful group on the court together for four games over a seven day span overseas.
The competition was much weaker than the competition they will face when the games begin to count in November, but coach McCaffery cares more about the experience the young group will gain then the games themselves.
“My experience in the past has been the teams that have had this opportunity have always gelled and played well the following year. They just come together. You know, so that’s probably as important a component of this opportunity as anything” said McCaffery.
He added “I want it to be something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives. You get to do this once when you’re in college, and we want to make sure, and fortunately we’re very thankful to Mr. Barta to make sure we’re doing it right. ”
The full transcript of his press conference from August 2nd is here, and you can see from McCaffery’s comments that he is well aware about the youth of his team.
That youth has brought promise, as the Hawkeyes lost only one impact player from last season’s 18 win team that was one marquee win away from the NCAA tournament.
While that one impact player was Peter Jok, the leading scorer in the Big Ten, Jok wasn’t without his deficiencies and there are still multiple skilled wings on the roster. Sophomore Isaiah Moss is poised for a breakout season after emerging as the starting shooting guard a year after he took a redshirt, while juniors Nicholas Baer and Christian Williams are both much better defenders then Jok ever was. Neither one of them have very high offensive ceilings, but Baer’s shooting and rebounding ability could complement Moss’ skill set nicely, while Williams’ ballhandling skills as a natural point guard will help take some pressure off of Moss and starting point guard Jordan Bohannon.
One thing Iowa desperately lacked last season was a true center, as no one on the roster was taller than 6’9 and it killed them in the paint defensively. Fortunately for the Hawkeyes, their most talented newcomer is 6’11 true freshman center Luka Garza.
The four star recruit spurned Georgetown, Indiana, Notre Dame and Louisville in favor of the Hawkeyes, just a year after Big Ten All-Freshman team big man Tyler Cook turned down Iowa State, Virginia, Florida and Kansas for a chance to be a Hawkeye. It’s been a long, long time since Iowa has had a front court with this much talent and upside.
Garza has wasted no time showing the Iowa faithful what he was capable of, as he was by far the most dominant Hawkeye in Europe.
The Hawkeys won all four games of the trip in blowout fashion, with an 11 man rotation splitting time evenly (forward Cordell Pemsll and guard Maishe Dailey were inactive with injuries). Garza was able to put up 22.5 ppg and 11.3 rpg in just under 19 minutes of action per game. That’s 10 points more per game than any other player, and more than double the amount of rebounds as the teams second leading rebounder.
Regardless of competition level, those numbers are impressive and definitely worth getting excited about.
The last 10 days have given this group of young Hawkeyes invaluable experience together,while also giving the big guns a chance to show us a preview of things to come. The core of Bohannon, Moss, Cook and Garza is the most exiting young core Iowa has had in quite some time, and their journey together stars now.