Adam Woodbury is Iowa’s best — and only — true post player on the team.
By Kyle Mann
[email protected]
Fran McCaffery and the Iowa basketball team have enjoyed a string of being led by NBA-caliber talent in recent years and have correspondingly reached two-consecutive NCAA Tournaments.
The streak will continue as potential first-rounder Jarrod Uthoff headlines the 2015-16 Hawkeyes, but this season’s success hinges elsewhere.

At 7-1, Adam Woodbury enters his senior season with the Hawkeyes with more pressure than he’s had in any other season. After enjoying the assistance of Aaron White and Gabe Olaseni for his first three years, Woodbury now finds himself as not only the clear-cut best post player on the roster, but the only one.

No, literally, the only one.

Woodbury is the only player on the roster taller than 6-9, and perhaps more concerning, the only player weighing in at more than 225 pounds. The role of Woodbury — once a sought-after four-star recruit with an offer from North Carolina and McCaffery’s first signature signing as Iowa’s head coach — at Iowa was long destined to be something along these lines.

Accordingly, McCaffery plans to lean heavily on his first crown jewel in 2015.
“Woody’s going to play a lot more,” McCaffery said. “He’s got to be able to play 30 to 36 [minutes], somewhere in there.”

That may seem like a lot; last season 36 minutes would have placed him in the top 50 in the NCAA and third in the Big Ten. It seems like a lot more when taking into account that he averaged only 20.5 minutes last season en route to posting 6.6 points and 5.2 rebounds per game.

However, McCaffery is optimistic that barring foul trouble or injury, the increase in minutes will come with a sharp increase in production.

“He’s going to play a lot more now, so you’ll see his numbers improve without question,” McCaffery said. “He’s a guy that I think could lead the Big Ten in rebounding. Will he? I think he could.”

This dynamic could be seen last season with the impending graduation of Olaseni and the drafting of White, so Woodbury has prepared all summer for the demand of the upcoming season.

“I’m going to be in the best physical shape that I’ve ever been in,” he said. “Just going to try to be able to compete as hard as I can for those 35 minutes.”

At this point, the situation is what it is. Woodbury is going to play a lot of minutes, for better or worse, because he has to. He mentally and physically geared up for the challenge  all summer, and hey, maybe McCaffery is right — maybe he will average more than 10 rebounds per game.

But even if all goes as planned with Woodbury, the biggest question and area of concern is more focused on what surrounds and supports him.
Again, Woodbury is the only true post player on the roster. Even keeping in mind the prevalence of the “stretch-4” in college basketball, a forward who can play both in and away from the paint,most of the Hawkeyes’ skills would be out of position at power forward. And center, who plays center if, god forbid, Woodbury gets hurt, or in foul trouble, or tired?

“That’s the hand we’re dealt, so we’re not going to worry about what we don’t have,” Woodbury said. “We’re going to worry about the guys we do have on our team and try to make the best of it.”

And with what the Hawks do have, Iowa fans are going to see what could be as atypical a frontcourt that could be found in the Big Ten. You may want to sit down for this.

Ladies and gentlemen, your backup center: 6-9, 215-pound sophomore Dom Uhl.

Uhl is a good player, but his skills are that of a lanky, wiry 3 or 4. There will be many times when Uhl will be impressive this season, but he will likely be at a disadvantage in about every instance he lines up as the 5.

The ideal situation, obviously, will be to keep Woodbury at center and Uhl at power forward. But if worse comes to worst, Uhl is the guy, which opens a spot for a potential X-factor in transfer Dale Jones.

At 6-7 and 220 pounds, Jones logged 17 points and 8 rebounds at Tyler Junior College, and he also shot 45 percent from 3. He’s got a genuinely sweet shooting stroke that could help counteract the team’s weakness down low, and with a more solid body type and rebounding ability, could be the saving grace Iowa needs in the frontcourt.

“I’m not one of those shooters that will shoot us out of a game, I’m just a guy that if I’m open, I’ll take the shot and be confident in myself,” Jones said. “I feel like I’m physically ready for [the Big Ten].”

The Hawkeyes may be Uthoff’s team, but Woodbury and the frontcourt will make it or break it.