The Iowa basketball season didn’t get a proper ending due to the cancellation of the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments, but the expectations for next season is already ramping up in a big way.
The Hawkeyes officially finished at a Top 25 this year, with a 20-11 overall record. The season included victories over Texas Tech, Maryland, Syracuse, Iowa State, Cincinnati, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Penn State, and Rutgers.
It also included a national player of the year and first team All American in Luka Garza, who averaged 23 points and nearly 10 rebounds per game. And it also included a third team All Big Ten selection in Joe Wieskmap, who averaged 14 points and 6 rebounds this past season and C.J. Fredrick, who was a member of the All Freshman team for the Big Ten.
On paper, the Hawkeyes will return 84% of their offensive output, 81% of their rebounds, 86% of their three point field goals made, and 83% of their assists dished out.
When you have those types of numbers returning from a squad that won 20 games, finished in the upper half of the toughest league in the country, and potentially return the top player in the country, the expectations are going to ramp up for the next season.
Usually right after the end of the Final Four we see various publications roll out their way too early Top 25’s for the next season. With the NCAA Tournament not happening this year, the outlooks for next season are already being published.
It’s no surprise that Iowa is listed as generally among the top ten teams heading into the 2020-21 season. They return most of their significant pieces and will be adding back Jordan Bohannon, who played in 10 games this year and is the all-time leading three point shooter in Hawkeye history and Jack Nunge, who was the starting power forward before he tore his ACL early in the year.
Here’s a rundown of some of the preseason rankings so far:
ESPN - 7th
NBC Sports – 13th
CBS Sports – 9th
USA Today – 7th
Yahoo Sports – 8th
The consensus is Iowa is a Top Ten team heading into next year, for now.
We also know these rankings are going to change before the start of next season.
Players are going to transfer, so there will be additions and subtractions from most rosters.
Players will decide to explore NBA opportunities with some leaving and others returning to school.
The biggest question for the Hawkeyes this off-season will be what happens with Luka Garza and Joe Wieskamp and the NBA. Both players have the opportunity to test the waters of the NBA, which Wieskamp did last year following his first year with the Hawkeyes. I suspect both will end up declaring for the NBA Draft, but not sign with an agent, meaning they could return to Iowa for another year.
Right now, like most of the sports world, the NBA is in a holding pattern. We don’t know if or when their season will return. We don’t know if the NBA will have a combine or if teams will be able to host individual workouts. We don’t know if the season resumes if that will impact the date of the NBA Draft, which is currently scheduled for June 20th.
We know where Iowa will be if everyone is back. If Garza were to depart, I still think they would be a marginal Top 25 team, but if both players were to leave, then Iowa’s going to drop out of the Top 25’s just about everywhere.
Now we just have to wait and see how this all shakes out and given how uncertain everything in sports is, it’s hard to give anyone a firm date as far as what Iowa’s roster will look like next season unless Garza and Wieskamp announce that they are signing with an agent and going full speed ahead with the NBA or they decided to come back to Iowa for one more season.
