Iowa basketball: Joe Wieskamp wins B1G Freshman of the Week, again

After another outstanding week with the men’s Iowa basketball team, Joe Wieskamp collected his second B1G Freshman of the Week award.

If you haven’t jumped on the Joe Wieskamp train yet, you need to because it’s about to take off. Expectations for the freshman from Muscatine, Iowa were sky-high entering this season considering he is the third-highest rated recruit in the history of the Iowa basketball program. Needless to say, he’s lived up the hype as a top-60 player in the class of 2018.

Wieskamp, a 6’6” 205 pound guard is currently third on the team in scoring with 11.4 points per game and second on the team in rebounds with 5 per game, which happens to top the amount 6’11” center Luka Garza averages (for context, he pulls down 4.8 rebounds per game).

While he has generally played strong throughout the season, he hit a few rough patches, most notably against Michigan State and Minnesota last week.

His response was pretty impressive though.

Against the #5 ranked Michigan Wolverines (Michigan is now ranked #7), Wieskamp was Iowa’s second leading scorer after hitting 6 of 10 shots for 16 points while also grabbing seven rebounds and stealing the ball five times.

Apparently it’s something Fran McCaffery has been preaching to the freshman. In his post-game press conference after the Michigan game, he said this.

"It’s great for him. It’s great for us. I’m happy for him. I told him after the last game, I said you gotta recognize when you walk on the floor, you gotta view yourself as one of the best players out there; wouldn’t trade you for anybody. So go out there and attack. Be aggressive. Shoot 3s. Drive it. Dunk it. Rebound it. Kick it."

Well, Fran, it worked.

Today, Wieskamp received Big Ten Freshman of the Week honors, for the second time.

As we said in our post-game takeaways from Iowa versus Michigan, Joe Wieskamp is a star.

His time is now, and the Iowa basketball team will need some big performances come tournament time if they want to advance further than any Fran McCaffery-led Iowa basketball team has before.