It’s never too early to look at what’s to come. During the next few weeks, we will give you a peek at what is ahead for teams in the Power 5 conferences and some other teams expected to be players on the national scene. Next up: Iowa.
This feels premature. Not only because Peter Jok, who wasn’t invited to the NBA combine, could make a horrible decision next week and keep his name in this summer’s draft. Don’t do it, Peter!
But the fresh scent of last season’s collapse still wafts over Iowa City. So perhaps we should wait a few weeks before we do this.
Iowa was ranked third in the Associated Press Top 25 poll in Week 12 before finishing 3-7 in the final 10 games. That ended a momentous stretch for a program that swept Michigan State and, for a month or so, became the country’s sexy national championship pick.
Its late-season fall, and the rise that preceded it, centered on the efforts of a veteran nucleus – Jarrod Uthoff, Mike Gesell, Anthony Clemmons and Adam Woodbury – that helped the Hawkeyes break an eight-year absence from the NCAA tournament and earn three consecutive at-large berths from 2014 through 2016. The messy finish did not end Iowa’s postseason aspirations, which eventual champ Villanova ruined in the second round. The legacy of those vets is layered, but it includes one of the greatest seasons in Iowa history and a return to the NCAA tournament.
The 2015-16 Hawkeyes remained in the Top 10 for a month.
Now, Fran McCaffery will begin again.
He lost the critical foursome and the pillar of his program to graduation. And Jok (16.1 points per game, 40 percent from the 3-point line, 85 percent from the free-throw line) might turn pro, although his omission from the list of NBA combine invitees should encourage the talented athlete to return for his senior season and a shot at Big Ten Player of the Year.
Jok’s return, however, would not come with any guarantees of success in the Big Ten or beyond. The young Hawkeyes will rebuild with a team that could feature two or three freshmen in the starting rotation after losing four seniors from last year.
Tyler Cook, ranked 38th in the 2016 class, per Recruiting Nation, is a 6-foot-9 power forward who played next to elite NBA prospect Jayson Tatum at Chaminade College Prep in St. Louis, Missouri. Jordan Bohannon, a four-star player, could replace Gesell at point guard, although McCaffery praised 6-6 sophomore Christian Williams during a recent interview with HawkCentral.com, a joint venture with the Des Moines Register and Iowa City Press-Citizen.
Williams played point guard in limited minutes last season.
“He is a guy that can get you into your offense,” McCaffery told HawkCentral.com. “He’s smart, he’s very unselfish. He’s a different kind of point guard; he’s an offensive rebounder; he’s got a 6-11 wingspan. So it gives you a different dimension at that position.”
Isaiah Moss, a four-star small forward in the 2015 class, redshirted last season, but he’ll compete for a starting spot this fall.
Plus, Dom Uhl returns. Uhl, on his best days, resembled a player on the rise. But we grade double-digit efforts against weaker nonconference opponents on a curve. Still, the 6-8 German forward will start for McCaffery’s squad. And he could develop into the most important player on the roster after Jok.
The best-case scenario for Iowa? Jok returns, Uhl grows and the incoming freshmen mature (rapidly) this summer, consume the playbook and enter 2016-17 prepared to compete.
The worst-case scenario? Jok (let’s assume he returns) scores 20-plus points per game while the young contributors around him struggle in a season that ends Iowa’s three-year stretch of NCAA tournament appearances.
The latter seems more realistic.