Veteran roster key for Iowa men’s basketball
The Hawkeyes can lean on their experienced roster throughout what figures to be an unpredictable 2020-21 season.
Iowa center Luka Garza dunks the ball during a men’s basketball game between the Iowa Hawkeyes and the Nebraska Huskers at Carver-Hawkeye arena on Saturday, February 8, 2020. The Hawkeyes defeated the Huskers 96-72.
November 10, 2020
With daily COVID-19 testing and the uncertainty of how many games might be played, Iowa men’s basketball may have to adjust to changes on the fly more often than ever before.
Though the 2020-21 season is looking unpredictable, what No. 5 Iowa does have is a veteran roster.
Practices have been incredibly competitive, Iowa men’s basketball head coach Fran McCaffery said at a press conference Monday.
McCaffery is pleased that he has a lot of different options to look to, and he said that starts with his experienced players. McCaffery hasn’t been putting the same units of five out on the court at practice as lineup combinations could vary throughout the season and individual games.
“We’re much deeper, substantially deeper,” McCaffery said. “We’ve got veteran guys coming back who have produced at this level, but at the same time it won’t change in terms of our ability to share the ball. It’s a very unselfish group. You’ve got a lot of guys that can score, a lot of guys who want to score, a lot of guys who can carry a team on any particular day. But I have seen no selfishness at all in terms of, ‘I want to get mine.’ It’s not like that at all. They move it, they share it, they communicate with each other.”
As was the case in 2019-20, everything the Hawkeyes do during the 2020-21 campaign starts with senior center Luka Garza, who was the 2019-20 Big Ten Player of the Year and is 2020-21 Big Ten Preseason Player of the Year.
Though he could have entered the 2020 NBA Draft, Garza decided to stay in Iowa City for his senior year after averaging 23 points and nine rebounds per game last season.
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“I think he’s already proven that he can handle that game in and game out,” McCaffery said. “I don’t think he has to be any better in that area. I think what he has to be is better in all areas of his game. So just taking the natural progression from his junior to his senior year, OK, what can he be better at. Well, it’s impossible to work any harder because he works. His feel for low post play is unmatched. Defensively, I think you saw a dramatic improvement from his sophomore year to his junior year. I think he could improve there even more.”
McCaffery said Garza is the vocal leader on the team. Other players McCaffery mentioned as being leaders were senior guard Jordan Bohannon, junior guard Connor McCaffery, and junior forward Joe Wieskamp — all of whom have been key players in the past.
There’s a strong possibility that many of Iowa’s road games will be played in fan-less arenas, which could make the Hawkeyes a tougher opponent for home teams.
“I think that’s a fair observation — maybe it would,” McCaffery said. “But you could argue that we’d be better off on the road being that we have a veteran club. So, there’s two ways to look at that. I think what you just hope is that this group knows and understands what we have to do night in and night out to beat our particular opponent, and if we lose, that we’re mature enough to evaluate what needs to be corrected, make those corrections, and be better the next time we play.”
The Big Ten has not announced what fan attendance at men’s and women’s basketball games will look like in the 2020-21 season. The conference has not released its men’s or women’s basketball schedules yet either.
