The Iowa men’s basketball team is set to open its season Tuesday night against North Dakota at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Coming off a 103-76 victory in an exhibition game over Quincy last week, the Hawkeyes look to improve their preseason performance but also  find leadership and prove their doubters wrong. 

Iowa and North Dakota haven’t played each other since 2016, when the Hawkeyes delivered an 11-point victory in Iowa City. Since then, the Fighting Hawks have hired a new head coach, Paul Sather, who has compiled a 43-80 mark over four seasons. 

In 2022-2023, North Dakota won six of its last nine games, including postseason contests.  The Fighting Hawks also lead the Summit League in bench points, with 24.76 points per game coming from its reserve players. That stat ranked No. 39 in the nation. This season, the Fighting Hawks return three routine starters; second-year B.J. Omot, third-year Stone Tsartsidze, and fifth-year Brady Danielson.

Standing at 6-foot-8, Omot led the team in scoring last season with 14.9 points per game but was also a factor on the defensive end, racking up 31 blocks over 33 contests. Tsartsidze ranked third on the squad in scoring last season but led the Hawks with 5.6 rebounds per game. 

In their 107-48 exhibition victory over Northland College, the Hawks shot 43.5 percent from behind the arc.

“They’re big but also have a lot of three-point shooters,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said at media availability on Monday. “I’m impressed with what I’ve seen on film.” 

From what McCaffery has seen on film from his Hawkeyes in their private scrimmage against Wichita State and their open exhibition against Quincy, the head coach pointed out defensive prowess, rebounding, and accuracy from the three-point line. 

According to McCaffery, Iowa was outrebounded by the Shockers and also conceded 14 threes to Quincy. Even still, the head coach isn’t too concerned with results but more so the learning process.

“Whoever started calling them ‘secret scrimmages’ is idiotic,” McCaffery said of the Hawkeyes’ matchup with Wichita State. “There’s nothing secret about it on a Sunday afternoon. We’re not publicizing it because it’s a learning opportunity.”

The head coach explained how during the scrimmage, the Hawkeyes played for more than 40 minutes, dividing the time into sessions where they could focus on certain aspects like zone defense, half-court press, and out-of-bounds plays. The score would reset after each session and, sometimes, the teams would practice different scenarios, such as being ahead by one point with three minutes to go.

Even though the final score of Tuesday’s game will actually matter, McCaffery doesn’t take too much stock into the first game of the season. Remembering his time working as an assistant coach under the late John MacLeod at Notre Dame, McCaffery noted how MacLeod coached NBA seasons, which could measure up to over 100 games with the inclusion of the preseason and playoffs. 

“If you start getting too hyped up, too high or too low. I don’t think that works,” McCaffery said. “You better be locked into what’s coming next. Let’s fix what needs to be fixed, let’s try to improve and let’s prepare. Not get too down after a loss or too down after a win.”

Bowen back as starter  

Listed as a probable starter against the Hawks is second-year point guard Dasonte Bowen, who also started in the matchup against Quincy. In that exhibition, the 6-foot-2, 183-pounder nearly doubled his scoring output from last season, collecting six points on three-of-six shooting while grabbing six boards and three assists. 

Bowen said while he was recruited as a scoring guard out of Brewster Academy in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, his main role now as point guard is to “facilitate, and when necessary, be scoring.” McCaffery agreed, adding that the Hawkeyes don’t have a “pass-only point guard.”

After not getting on the court for a few games last season, Bowen said he could have acted worse with his body language but instead chose to have a “professional approach.” Rather than keeping his head down and sulking on the bench, Bowen said he was always clapping and talking to his teammates on the sidelines, knowing that “everyone is constantly watching” what the team does. 

This past offseason, Bowen said he added 9-10 pounds to his frame, getting in the weight room twice a day and featuring more protein in his diet. As for improving his jumper, Bowen said such growth was due to simple repetition, explaining how he made sure to hit 200 shots per day before the start of the season. 

Rah-rah every so often 

McCaffery said the three main leaders on the squad are senior forward Patrick McCaffery, senior guard Tony Perkins, and junior forward Payton Sandfort, all of whom logged at least 20 minutes per game last season. As for Perkins, the head coach said he “challenged”  the 6-foot-4, 205-pounder to take a more vocal approach to his leadership. 

For Patrick McCaffery, he said he “wasn’t afraid to lead” while at Iowa City West High School but maintained that his leadership took a backseat in college, as his older brother and former Hawkeye guard Connor McCaffery took on the leadership role of the team. 

Patrick McCaffery said he still has the ability to crank out a “rah-rah speech every once in a while” but prefers to keep focused on the “technical aspect” of the game and aiding the younger guys on the team. Nevertheless, the 6-foot-9, 212-pounder added that he did deliver a pregame pep talk prior to the contest against Quincy, the content of which he “can’t repeat.” 

Talking to reporters while dripping in sweat after getting up shots before practice, Patrick McCaffery said individual work is something that no one on the team shies away from. Heading into a season where many have doubted the Hawkeyes, the forward said the team has taken note of some of the “outlandish predictions” thrown at Iowa. CBS Sports and FOX Sports each predicted Iowa would finish 10th in the Big Ten. 

“I think we have good continuity, I’m excited,” he said of the team. “At the end of the day, the only thing we can really do is I can sit in here in front of you and curse out every single person who made [a bad prediction], but I would rather just go out on the floor and let them feel stupid themselves.”