Iowa basketball: Isaiah Moss heading to national powerhouse

The saga of the Isaiah Moss transfer story took another turn today when the former Iowa basketball player committed to the Kansas Jayhawks.

Isaiah Moss decided to transfer from the Iowa basketball team a month ago, and then announced his commitment to the Arkansas Razorbacks shortly after.

The Razorbacks didn’t make that much sense at the time, and it obviously seems like Moss agrees, because late last week he decommitted.

Arkansas isn’t exactly a basketball school, and they are playing in a conference that is more often associated with being a powerhouse football conference.

If the plan was to shine and get exposure, Arkansas was the worst option of his short list of teams (Oregon, Arizona State, and Kansas). The decision was made worse when Arkansas went out and signed another guard, JD Notae to play for them.

After a little deliberation, Moss is now heading to Kansas.

A couple of thoughts on this:

• Given the time it took for him to pick a school, I think Kansas was always the next option after Arkansas.
•  Moss hasn’t actually graduated from Iowa so no official papers have been signed yet, meaning he was still technically available, which gets me to my next point.
•  With the departure of 5-star shooting guard Quentin Grimes, Kansas likely made a late push for Moss.

For Moss, I think this is the best fit for him. If he wants exposure, you’re not going to get much more than playing for a perennial powerhouse like Kansas who is a preseason top-10 team (after the arrival of Moss). More importantly, though, he is going to have a big role in this offense. Kansas is losing 2 of its top 3 guards from 2019 and is only returning one player who shot over 31% from behind the arc in a notable sample size of playing time this season (Chris Teahan shot 40% on 5 total attempts in 11 games).

Moss has aspirations to play in the NBA, and he does fit the mold of today’s 3 and D guards that NBA teams covet.

If he can help this Kansas team with spacing and go on a deep run in the NCAA Tournament, he may improve his draft stock enough to at least have a chance.