No
Iowa men’s basketball head coach Fran McCaffery finished the 2023-24 campaign with a 19-15 record, disappointing many fans and missing the NCAA tournament in his 14th season as head coach.
After reviewing this year’s schedule, the 2024-25 season will likely be another sub-20 win season for McCaffery.
McCaffery recorded only six seasons under 20 wins during his Iowa tenure, but this season brings many challenges that Hawkeye basketball has not seen before.
With two of Iowa’s top five scorers from last season transferring to other programs — Patrick McCaffery to Butler and Tony Perkins to Missouri — the Hawkeyes are going to be heavily reliant on veteran Payton Sandfort and Co-Big Ten Freshman of the Year winner Owen Freeman.
Iowa fans know this, opponents know this, and McCaffery definitely knows this.
If opponents can neutralize Sandfort and Freeman, then the Hawkeyes will have to look for another offensive alternative to win games.
While their non-conference opponents seem fairly manageable — in an already intense Big Ten conference — adding the addition of UCLA, USC, Oregon, and Washington makes the already grueling league that much more difficult.
Additionally, last year’s team went 4-9 in away games, and Iowa will have to face respected programs such as Michigan, UCLA, Illinois, Ohio State, and Maryland on the road this year.
The Hawkeyes will also have to face in-state rival Iowa State in Carver, who was ranked No. 5 in the preseason Associated Press top-25.
Iowa’s roster is also very young, with only four fourth-years on the squad. With the lack of veteran leadership on the team, the Hawkeyes will have to grow up fast to succeed in the lengthy college basketball season.
Add in the gauntlet of the Big Ten and Iowa’s lack of experience on the court, and it sets up a challenging season for Iowa.
Yes
The Iowa basketball season is underway, and preseason predictions from a handful of college basketball media outlets have mixed feelings about the Hawkeyes’ upcoming campaign.
Ken Pomeroy, a statistician who developed an advanced analysis of college basketball, has slotted Iowa as the 37th-best team in the country. This is ahead of other conference teams such as USC, Indiana, and Northwestern.
The Hawkeyes were met with less favorable recognition in the annual Big Ten preseason media poll. College basketball journalists placed Iowa near the back half of the conference at 11th, two spots lower than the 2023-24 squad.
Iowa loses key players such as Tony Perkins, Patrick McCaffery, and Ben Krikke, but I still believe the key returners and transfer portal additions will propel the Hawkeyes to their first 20-win season in two years.
Highlighting the returnees is fourth-year forward Payton Sandfort. After testing the NBA waters, Sandfort returns to Iowa after his most successful year in the program. Another big name to watch is second-year center Owen Freeman. After earning Co-Big Ten Freshman of the Year honors last year, Freeman looks to continue his development.
Head coach Fran McCaffery and the coaching staff also dipped into the transfer portal to replenish some of the talent he lost.
Morehead State transfer Drew Thelwell adds veteran leadership at point guard, averaging 10 points and 6.2 assists per game for the Eagles last season. Manhattan’s Seydou Traore is a lengthy 6-foot-7 wing who also brings athleticism to the Hawkeye roster. The Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference All-Freshman team member notched 11 points and eight rebounds a game for the Jaspers. Traore also has a defensive aspect of his game that can immediately impact the Iowa roster, as he averaged 1.5 steals and 1.3 blocks per game for Manhattan.
Iowa is set up to have a successful season under McCaffery with these transfers.
Eclipsing the 20-win plateau and staying competitive in a loaded Big Ten conference is what I expect from the Hawkeyes this season.