The Iowa men’s basketball team held its annual media day on Monday, signaling the beginning of a new season.

The Hawkeyes are aiming to rebound from a mediocre 2023-24 season that saw the team finish with 19-15 overall and 10-10 in Big Ten play. Iowa missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2018, causing anxious uproar from the Hawkeye faithful.

Despite the disappointing season, head coach Fran McCaffery and his players remain optimistic for a turnaround.

“We expect to go to the NCAA tournament,” McCaffery said. “We expect to contend night in and night out in a very difficult league.

One of the critical factors to Iowa’s success this season could be the veteran leadership of senior forward Payton Sandfort.

Sandfort posted 16.4 points, 6.6 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game in 2023-24, leading the Big Ten in made three-pointers.  Many national sportswriters and analysts projected him as a potential NBA Draft selection.

After careful consideration with his teammates and family, Sandfort ultimately opted to return to the Hawkeyes for his final season, providing a major spark of enthusiasm within the program.

“I love this team, and I think it’s going to provide me and a lot of other guys an opportunity to progress our careers as individuals — but also as a team,” Sandfort.

Throughout his Iowa career, Sandfort has had the chance to learn from program legends such as Luka Garza, Connor McCaffery, Jordan Bohannon, and assistant coach Matt Gatens, also a former Hawkeye.

As his senior season inches closer, Sandfort has happily embraced the leadership role.

“It’s tough,” Sandfort said. “You have to be locked in every game. You know, you can get every team’s best. It’s super exciting, but the guys around me are going to make it easy on me.”

Sandfort’s return has generated plenty of offseason hype on the national scene. The player from Waukee, Iowa, was named to the preseason All-Big Ten team last week and will likely be listed on many preseason award watch lists in the next few weeks.

“I’m very impressed with what he learned going through the NBA Draft process and his attitude upon return and how it relates to his teammates has been what I would have expected from him,” McCaffery said.

Harding growing into a larger role

Last season, the Hawkeyes featured an inexperienced roster that ranked as one of the youngest teams in college basketball. Three freshmen played regular minutes, with Owen Freeman spending most of the season as the starting center.

Freeman established himself as one of the top players in the Big Ten, earning Co-Freshman of the Year honors alongside Indiana’s Mckenzie Mgbako. He is expected to retain that status in 2024-25 but hopes to have help from guard Brock Harding.

Harding and Freeman were teammates at Moline High School in Moline, Illinois, where Harding earned Illinois Mr. Basketball honors during their senior campaign in 2023. The 6-foot guard tallied 3.4 points and 2.6 assists per game last year and looks to play a larger role as his minutes increase.

“I think just with more minutes comes a lot more responsibility,” Harding said. “As a point guard in the Big Ten, you have to take care of the ball with the style of offense we run.”

Harding has focused on fine-tuning many aspects of his game in the offseason, but placed major emphasis on his shooting, working with Gatens on releasing the shot faster.

“Every time it’s out of my hand, I feel like it’s going in,” Harding said. “I’ve always been a pretty good shooter, but just getting the consistency down and just with more reps comes more possibilities and more opportunity to shoot the ball this season.”

Harding also added roughly 15 pounds of muscle in the offseason, something that could pay off in the ragged, physical Big Ten.

“I had a pretty good base [weight] coming in, but the strength coaches have been great at what I needed to lock in on, putting on some mass, putting on some muscle, but not too much, to maintain my quickness and maintain my speed,” Harding said.

Harding will compete for the starting point guard spot with Morehead State transfer Drew Thelwell. Thelwell has four years of college basketball under his belt and has passed some of his knowledge to Harding.

“It’s been fun just to kind of battle with him every single day,” Harding said. “I’m a lot quicker, obviously, and he uses his physicality. So just kind of two different dynamics that we get to guard each other.”

Competition at the four spot

Iowa’s 2024-25 starting lineup is nearly set, with the combination of Sandfort, Josh Dix, and either Harding or Thelwell comprising the bulk of those minutes.

The only position that remains in question is the four, which could be occupied by second-year Ladji Dembele, second-year Seydou Traore, and first-year Cooper Koch.

Dembele posted 2.2 points and two rebounds per game in 2023-24 and figures to be the frontrunner for the spot, but could be challenged by Traore, who transferred in from Manhattan after a breakout freshman campaign with the Jaspers where he recorded 11.9 points and 8.1 rebounds per game.

Koch was ranked as the No. 14 power forward and the No. 2 player in Illinois by 247Sports and is a legacy recruit, as his father J.R. played for the Hawkeyes from 1995-1999 and was selected in the second round of the 1999 NBA Draft by the New York Knicks.

“They’re not all four men,” McCaffery said. “They can play the four spot. They can play the three spot. They can play the five spot. Somebody is going to start there, but there are going to be a lot of different guys there.”