Iowa basketball: What Jack Nunge injury could mean for Hawks

The Iowa basketball team received devastating news when they found out starting forward Jack Nunge tore his ACL and is out the rest of the year.

This Iowa basketball season just doesn’t have many positives so far does it?

During Sunday night’s win over Cal Poly, starting forward Jack Nunge tore his ACL requiring him to miss the remainder of the season. Nunge, who started off a bit slow, has really come along the last few games after redshirting last season to redefine his body and prepare for this season where he would get more minutes.

In light of that unfortunate news though, here is what it could mean for the Iowa basketball team in 2019-2020.

First and foremost, more minutes are coming Cordell Pemsl and Ryan Kriener’s way with a slight increase to Riley Till as well. Through five games, Nunge was averaging 17.4 minutes per game for the Iowa basketball team. Those minutes have to go somewhere and big men Pemsl and Kriener are the likely recipients.

More interesting about that though is what once was a strength with four big men for two spots, is not a concern with the depth chart. And with an abundance of guards (especially if Bohannon doesn’t redshirt — more to come on this), this could mean Fran McCaffery works in some smaller lineups more consistently over the course of the season. This would be quite a change considering only 7.9% of the Iowa basketball team’s lineups don’t have two of Iowa’s four big men in the game at the same time.

And if Patrick McCaffery is unable to play this season, the depth will be even worse.

Outside of the lineup impacts, this is a huge blow to the Iowa basketball team’s NCAA Tournament-birth hopes, and it could signal a rebuilding year under Fran McCaffery.

The above will especially be true if we see Jordan Bohannon ultimately take a redshirt year.

And if the two things above happen and if Fran McCaffery is able to keep his job, we could see a huge turnaround for the Iowa basketball team during the 2020-2021 season barring any major starters leaving in a mass exodus like this past offseason.

As you can see, the Jack Nunge injury creates an interesting domino effect for this team. While I like to stay on the side of optimism and think that this team isn’t completely ruined, if some of the items above do happen, we could be in for a long year for the Iowa basketball program.