Nothing cures an ailing program like success.
After a solid tenure with Iowa Men's Basketball, Fran McCaffery was fired in March 2025 and replaced by Drake head coach Ben McCollum. Following one of the best and most underrated head coaching hires in college basketball, the Hawkeye program went from barely achieving a .500 record during the 2024-2025 season to an improbable Elite 8 run in McCollum's first season. McCollum did things we hadn't seen since the 1980s when Dr. Tom Davis was in charge, and the program's success has placed them firmly in the mix for some top prospects.
Iowa will get an official visit from 2027 five-star Jalen Davis this fall
Even though nothing has materialized yet, the Hawkeyes have been in play for multiple five-star prospects, something that wasn't the case under McCaffery. McCollum's aggressive, but calculated recruiting style has paid off, and now the program could earn a commitment from one of the top guards in the 2027 class.
𝗦𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗖𝗘: Jalen Davis, a composite five-star recruit in the national 2027 class, will schedule five fall official visits.
— Brandon Jenkins (@BJenkins247) July 30, 2026
Davis is one of the more consistently productive lethal shot makers in high school basketball.
𝐕𝐈𝐏 https://t.co/KPqSOoCxgN pic.twitter.com/X0FwEk4NEf
After aggressively pursuing Cayden Daughtry, the No. 3 overall prospect in the 2027 class, the Hawkeyes got some great news: he not only received a massive rankings boost, but he also locked in an official visit to the Iowa program this fall. Now the program has also received word that elite scorer and 2027 top-20 overall prospect Jalen Davis will also make an official visit in the fall. Davis is one of the top offensive players in the class and can dominate on the offensive end without dominating the ball.
According to 247Sports Director of Scouting Adam Finkelstein, Davis moves the ball extremely well, is an excellent cutter, and is a very effective passer. He also knows how to use screens extremely well and can read the floor at an elite level. Most of his concerns stem from his lack of explosivity and size (six-foot-three, 165 pounds), but he makes up for it with elite shooting and basketball IQ. He is also an excellent rebounder (5.5 per game last season) and defender (averaged 3.3 steals per game last season), something McCollum highly values.
Davis looks like a typical Ben McCollum point guard with all the tools he possesses and has a very similar skill set to former Hawkeye Bennett Stirtz. He is slightly less athletic than Stirtz, but is arguably a better shooter at this stage in his career, and he would make an excellent running mate with Cayden Daughtry in the 2027 class, or with newly acquired point guard Ty'Reek Coleman. Davis is a dream prospect for the Hawkeyes, and if McCollum and company can pull it off, Davis is easily one of the highest-ranked recruits in program history.
247Sports composite currently ranks Davis as a five-star prospect, Washington's No. 1 overall prospect, the No. 4 overall CG prospect, and the No. 19 overall prospect in the 2027 recruiting class.
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