Iowa basketball: Monday might have been rock bottom for Hawks

Outside of an injury, Monday could not have gone worse for the Iowa basketball program. They got embarrassed by DePaul and lost out on their top recruit.

Well, if you are one of the Iowa basketball fans tired of the direction and staleness of the program under Fran McCaffery, yesterday was a perfect opportunity to vocalize your disdain.

The morning started off pretty rough with the Iowa basketball team’s top recruit in the class of 2020, Xavier Foster, an admitted Iowa fan and supporter, committing to in-state rival Iowa State. This comes after the Hawks offered Foster his first scholarship before his high school career even began. He cited the noted benefit of getting to the NBA with the Cyclones and his comfort level with the program.

Man, rough blow.

But then the Iowa basketball team proceeded to lay a big egg at home against DePaul. DePaul is a Division 1 program, but by most media outlets, they were projected to finish 9th or 10th this season in a rebounding Big East Conference.

The Hawkeyes were favored by 9 points and proceeded to lose by 15 to a 3-0 Blue Demons team, and unfortunately, there was not really anything to ever cheer about.

DePaul raced out to a 19-2 lead in the first 4.5 minutes and never looked back. Yes, they were hitting shots at a ridiculous clip (61.4% from the field and 55% from 3pt), but a lot of that has to fall back on the Iowa basketball team’s inability to play defense and guard on the perimeter.

DePaul was just too quick for the Iowa basketball team last night, and it didn’t help that the Hawks shot 42% from the field and 33.3% from 3pt with star wing Joe Wieskamp hitting just 1 of his 7 attempts on the night.

The two shining bright spots on an otherwise gloomy day for the Iowa basketball program were freshmen, CJ Fredrick and Joe Toussaint, who were 1st and 3rd on the team in scoring during the game with 16 and 13 points. Fredrick went 5 of 7 while notching 2 steals and Toussaint went 4 of 7 while getting 2 steals and dishing out 2 assists.

Iowa, now 1-1, gets Oral Roberts University Friday evening in what is hopefully a significantly better night at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.