Iowa basketball: Hawks strike out on three big-time transfer targets

In a matter of minutes, the potential for the Iowa basketball team reeling in three big-time transfers was shattered this afternoon.

The last few weeks haven’t been kind of the Iowa basketball team. Just a month after they made an improbable run against the #2 seeded Tennessee Volunteers, they are starting to look quite a bit different.

Nicholas Baer has graduated, and we all knew that was inevitable. Tyler Cook is heading to the NBA and is not returning, which we all expected but were cautiously optimistic he might stay. Maishe Dailey is transferring for an opportunity to get more playing time, and that was also something that was relatively telegraphed after his playing time was reduced late in his junior season. Then, last week we received word that Isaiah Moss would become a graduate transfer and depart the Iowa basketball program as well.

That leaves Fran McCaffery’s Hawkeyes with four scholarships open and just two incoming recruits for the class of 2019. Moreover, with the departure of both of the Iowa basketball team’s shooting guards, there is a noticeable lack of depth at that position (although there are a few options to fill that void). With just a few months until the fall semester of school begins, the Iowa basketball team needed to explore the transfer market with more gusto than they’ve shown in the past.

They certainly succeeded on exploring the market, and as late as last week were linked to three former four-star recruits that could have been high-impact players after sitting out a year for eligibility purposes.

Both of those hopes came crashing down this morning.

According to Jeff Goodman, the Hauser brothers are no longer visiting the Iowa basketball program after initial reports said the Hawks were one of four programs at the top of their list.

For whatever reason, the Hawks have been cut and this list is now three.

Meanwhile, former four-star guard DJ Harvey has officially committed to Vanderbilt after narrowing his choices down to the Hawks and the Commodores late last week. The former Notre Dame guard was actually in Iowa City late last week.

Apparently, the visit didn’t do enough to convince him to join the Hawks, unfortunately.

So at this point, it is back to the drawing board for Fran McCaffery’s squad as they look to add some firepower and defensive prowess to a team with high expectations heading into the 2019-2020 season.

Are they too late though? Not necessarily, but the road to finding an impact player now is considerably more difficult with guys determining their future destinations on a daily basis. Let’s wait and see if Fran can pull off some late transfer magic to add to this Iowa basketball team.