Garza's return sets up potentially special season

Now all we need is a college basketball season.

That’s the feeling shared by all Hawkeye fans on Sunday when Luka Garza announced that he would be returning for his senior season.

Garza was the Big Ten Player of the Year last season and like everyone else in the college game, saw his season come to an abrupt end due to Covid-19.

It’s that unfinished team business that will be the driving force for Garza, who averaged nearly 24 points and 10 rebounds per game last season.

He will be the odds on favorite to be the national Player of the Year in all of college basketball, but he has larger goals in mind. Garza has already built quite a legacy and depending on what the season ends up looking like, he could re-write the all-time scoring chart in Iowa basketball history.

Again, his goals and legacy goes well beyond the individual accomplishments.

Simply put, Garza is coming back with two goals in mind, bringing a Big Ten and National Championship back to Iowa City.

And he might just have the roster around him to do just that. That might sound crazy, but as long as Iowa’s main players stay healthy, they are likely a top five team nationally heading into the 2020-21 college basketball season.

Let’s start with the offensive firepower that the Hawkeyes would have returning.

There’s the overall picture for Iowa and the fact that last year KenPom.com rated their offense as the 5th best in all of college basketball with an adjusted offensive efficiency of 117.3.

Then there’s Garza, who was not only the Big Ten Player of the Year, but National Player of the Year according to The Sporting News, and he was also a consensus first team All American.

Last season as the Iowa roster got a little depleted after Jordan Bohannon shut things down to have hip surgery and C.J. Fredrick was sidelined for six games due to foot issues, opposing teams would double and triple team Garza and he was still very effective scoring the ball.

This season, Bohannon would be back for the long haul. He played in ten games last year and wasn’t fully healthy. Still his presence impacted the floor spacing against every opponent. Now after a second hip surgery, he’s as healthy as he has been since his freshman year.

Let’s not forgot just how good Bohannon is as a player and shooter. He set Iowa’s all-time record for made three point field goals and he did that in three years. If we get a full season, he could put himself in position to set the all-time mark in the Big Ten. Even after shooting just 32.9% from three in ten games last year, Bohannon is still a 40.3% shooter from behind the arch. By the way, the in-state standout is also sitting at 495 career assists, which is sixth all-time.

Then there’s junior wing Joe Wieskamp, who averaged 14 points and 6.1 rebounds per game last season while earning third team All Big Ten honors. With Bohannon and Fredrick out for parts of last season, Wieskamp slumped a bit shooting the basketball, but he should bounce back to something closer to his 42.5% three point field goal percentage in his freshman year and 49% overall shooting from the floor.

One of the really nice surprises last year for Iowa was the development of C.J. Fredrick. After redshirting in his first year, Fredrick moved into the starting lineup and while missing six games due to a foot injury, he became a steady performer at the shooting guard position. Fredrick shot 46.1% from three, which is the highest percentage ever for a freshman at Iowa and averaged 10.2 points per game.

Last year Garza faced those double teams because of lack of shooters once they lost Bohannon and missed Fredrick. This season, you just won’t be able to double team because the Hawkeyes will have three players surrounding him who could easily shoot over 40% from three.

Rounding out the possible starting lineup will be Connor McCaffery. The veteran guard improved his shooting a very respectable 34% from three and more importantly he took care of the ball better than anyone in the country. McCaffery dished out 124 assists and more importantly had only 27 turnovers in 31 games and he was playing an average of 30 minutes per game.

So, Iowa’s starting five has the best post player in the country, three of the better shooters in the Big Ten, and a player who simply doesn’t turn the ball over and makes good decisions with the basketball. That’s all the ingredients for a very high powered offense.

The Hawkeyes will miss Ryan Kriener and Bakari Evelyn, who have graduated and they could certainly use Cordell Pemsl, who decided to graduate transfer to Virginia Tech.

Still there’s some solid help that Iowa can bring off the bench.

It’s easy to forget that before he went down in the fifth game of the season, Jack Nunge was the starting power forward for the Hawkeyes and he seemed to be coming on. Nunge tore his ACL in that fifth game and he should be ready to go this season. Last year he averaged 6 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.

In the guard court, Joe Toussaint will be Iowa’s change of pace guard off the bench who can provide a spark on both ends of the floor. Toussaint was thrust into the starting lineup last year for the final 20 games of the year and ended up averaging 6.5 points and 2.9 assists per game.

That will likely be Iowa’s top seven, but they have the potential for very good depth in the upcoming season. Leading that charge will be Patrick McCaffery, who ended up redshirting after playing in the first two games. Last year he struggled to keep on weight and now it appears he might have turned the corner and is now up to over 200 pounds. The younger McCaffery could play a number of positions on the floor and gives the Hawkeyes another shooter with size.

Iowa is also bringing in five true freshman this season. It’s probably fair to say that while Fran McCaffery may end up being able to justify playing 10 or more players in a regular rotation, he seems to operate better when he limits his rotation to 8 or 9, so there’s probably only room for one or two more players in an ideal situation.

Of the incoming players the most likely would be either Ahron Ulis or Tony Perkins. Both will operate in the guard court and could play off the ball if needed. Ulis might be the more well-rounded of the two at this stage, but Perkins offers a bit more size and explosiveness. If there’s another player up front who could crack the rotation it could be Keegan Murray. He’s one of the two Murray twins now on the roster and he’s a bit more filled out at this point. If Iowa needs help up front, then he could provide it. The best guess is that Kris Murray ends up redshirting and given his travel difficulties from England, Josh Ogundele seems to be a good candidate to redshirt and practice every day against Garza.

With Garza back, Iowa fans should be extremely excited about the potential of the Hawkeye basketball team this season. The Hawkeyes haven’t shared a Big Ten title since the 1978-79 season and they haven’t won an outright regular season title since the 1969-70 campaign. Iowa hasn’t made the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament since the final year of Dr. Tom Davis 1998-99 and they haven’t made a trip to the Final Four since 1980.

All of those are on the table for this Iowa team. Now we just need to have a season and an NCAA Tournament and see if this group of Hawkeyes can do what Garza wants to do, leave a legacy and make history.