Iowa basketball: Moss picks interesting landing spot in SEC country

Former Iowa basketball player Isaiah Moss has officially found a home as he announced his intentions to play for the Arkansas Razorbacks next season.

News about former Iowa basketball player Isaiah Moss has been spilling out this week.

First, there was the news that he would not be transferring inside the Big Ten or to Iowa State (thankfully). Then, there was the news that he had narrowed down his school choices to Kansas, Arkansas, Oregon, and Arizona State.

Now, after weeks of speculation about where he could land, the shooting guard is officially going to be an Arkansas Razorback and to be honest, it’s a move I don’t understand.

https://twitter.com/imoss38/status/1128818920775929856

With over 50 suiters, Moss had plenty of options on the table, and it sounded like he was mostly interested in pursuing an opportunity to better get him to the NBA, which is why this situation doesn’t make much sense.

The SEC, for all its football glory, isn’t a great basketball conference. Although they did have seven bids to the NCAA Tournament (second most), the conference was held up by strong LSU, Tennessee, and Kentucky teams. Arkansas finished 9th in the conference with an 8-10 record and finished with an 18-16 record overall. Exposure wise, this isn’t a good move in comparison to playing in the loaded Big Ten.

From a playing time perspective, my guess is Moss has already had in-depth conversations with the coaching staff with what his involvement would be in the offense. Three of the four leading scorers are guards though, and they are all returning to the Razorbacks.

To be fair, I haven’t watched a lot of Arkansas basketball so I can’t tell you how he compares specifically to each of these three guys, but the only way this makes sense is if the former Iowa basketball player is expected to be the lead guy for a middling SEC program.

If that is the case, then the transfer away from the Iowa basketball team makes sense. If he ends up being the 4th guard in the rotation, this could be detrimental.

I hope (and assume) it’s the former, and Moss can count on me watching a few more Arkansas games next year so I can root on the former Iowa basketball player.