Iowa basketball: Xavier Foster sets favorable visit schedule for Hawks

The Iowa basketball team’s top recruit in the class of 2020 just released his visit schedule, and it’s favorable for Fran McCaffery and the Hawkeyes.

The Iowa basketball team is hot on Oskaloosa, Iowa four-star center Xavier Foster, and they got a bump of good news when Foster announced his top-five list, which included the Hawkeyes.

Just a week later, the 7’0” center announced his visit list, and the Iowa basketball team got a favorable draw.

Iowa State will lead off Xavier’s busy fall with a visit before he heads to Blacksburg to visit Virginia Tech. The following week he will be in Rhode Island at Providence, before heading to Iowa City a few weeks later.

Two things stick out about this. First, Baylor is noticeably absent. That doesn’t mean there won’t be an official visit, but it is odd that the other four would be announced and not Baylor.

The second is where the Iowa basketball team is at on this schedule.

In business, I have always subscribed to the notion that going last is best when it comes to sales. Often, it means your team (or organization) is in the lead and are getting the final word (or in this case visit). And even if they aren’t, you have the opportunity to be the last pitch heard. Recency bias is real.

The weekend Foster is visiting Iowa City also happens to be when Penn State is coming to town, which means the atmosphere is likely to be electric. As it stands right now, Penn State is ranked 15th in the AP Poll while Iowa is ranked 20th. Penn State should be heading into this game 5-0 and while the Iowa football team should be heading into this game ranked (as long as its’ only loss is to Michigan). If the Hawks manage to pull off a monumental upset in Ann Arbor, we could see Iowa high up in the rankings which would make this a top-15, maybe even a top-10 matchup of teams at Kinnick Stadium.

What an incredible atmosphere for Fran McCaffery to continue the sales pitch for one of the top recruits in the country.

Regardless of where Iowa stands coming into this game, they’ve historically shown the ability to knock off any Penn State team (except for a Saqoun-led Penn State team) at Kinnick so even if Iowa is limping into this game, the excitement and possibilities will be real.

For those reasons, the Iowa basketball team got quite a favorable draw with Foster’s visit schedule.