Iowa lands 2018 guard

Even though Joe Wieskamp has three more years at Muscatine High School ahead of him, the 6-foot-4 shooting guard felt the time was right to make his verbal commitment to Fran McCaffery and the Hawkeyes.

The Class of 2018 prospect picked up an offer from Iowa in early May and since that time, he's always had the Hawkeyes on his mind. Wieskamp and his family live only 35 minutes from Iowa City and grew up on Iowa Basketball, so when they made the trip to Iowa City today to meet with McCaffery and his staff, they decided to make it official.

"It's a very exciting day. I went to Iowa City today and took my entire family with me. We sat down with Coach McCaffery and told him I wanted to be a Hawkeye. Everyone was really excited, so it's been a great day," Wieskamp said.

Wieskamp, who averaged 16.8 point per game and connected on 40% of this three point attempts as a freshman playing varsity basketball at Muscatine, said his future head coach was thrilled with the news today.

"He was very excited when I told him the news. He said he can't wait to coach me and develop me as a player."

Wieskamp said that there were several factors that played into his decision to pick Iowa over offers from Iowa State and Northern Iowa. Among them were location, style of play, and his relationship with McCaffery's two son's Connor and Patrick, who also play for the Iowa Barnstormers AAU program.

"After getting the offer about a month ago, I thought about it a lot. I thought about wanting to play for the Hawkeyes and I felt like it was the right fit for me. I think the style of play is a great fit for me and I really like Coach McCaffery and he has watched me a lot," he said. "Being close to home really helped too. This way my parents can come see me play all my home games and that was important to me. Also, I have played a lot with Connor and Patrick and like playing with them."

Wieskamp is Iowa's first verbal commitment in the Class of 2018.