The journey of Luka Garza

At some point on Sunday afternoon, Luka Garza will likely look to the basket, take a shot, and watch it into the hoop for his 2,117th career point and become the all-time leading scorer in Iowa basketball history.

The Iowa big man scored 30 points on Thursday night, including 17 before the halftime break, in Iowa’s 77-62 win at Wisconsin. He is now just 14 points away from history, passing the great Roy Marble, who has held the scoring mark since 1989.

Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery knew of Marble from afar when he coached against Iowa early in his career leading another program. Once he took the job leading the Iowa program, McCaffery took over recruiting his son, Devyn Marble, who is currently 7th on the Hawkeye scoring list with 1,694 points on his own, and he developed a friendship with Roy Marble as he battled cancer.

“I know this, Roy would have really enjoyed watching Luka and he would be the first guy out there to congratulate him,” McCaffery said recently.

Unfortunately, Marble passed away due to cancer in 2015, but there’s no doubt he would love watching Garza perform at Carver-Hawkeye Arena the last four years.

It goes without saying that Garza has had quite a college career. Perhaps the only people who say this level of success coming were Luka and his father, Frank. The fact that he is on the cusp of Hawkeye history is a testament to his father's vision and Luka's tireless work ethic mixing with his god given talent.

To get where he is today, it’s worth looking back at his recruitment and the path that led him to Iowa City.

Garza first appeared on Iowa’s radar in June of 2015 when he was coming off a foot injury and Fran McCaffery got his first look at the Washington, D.C. big man. The first time McCaffery saw Garza was actually outside a live period. He was in the gym with his son, Connor, who was playing for the All Iowa Attack (not his regular AAU team) at an event in Atlanta which also featured Team Takeover, Garza’s AAU squad.

Shortly after that, Connor McCaffery attended a Nike Jamboree event in St. Louis and Garza was also invited to the event. That’s where Fran McCaffery decided that he saw something in the emerging big man in the Class of 2017 and was ready to extend a scholarship offer.

McCaffery already had a vision for Garza right out the gate.

"He said with the kind of offense they run that I would be a great fit for his program," Garza said in our interview with him after the scholarship offer. "He said I would fit in really well because I can shoot the ball really well out to the three and when I get the ball in the post, I can finish with either hands and I am a good passer. I can run the floor really well and hit the trail three and he liked how I had a very versatile skill set."

From there it was Garza actually getting to visit the Iowa campus and he did that in November of 2015 for the first time. That weekend was one of the most amazing in Hawkeye sports history with the Iowa wrestlers hosting Oklahoma State in an outdoor meet that was attended by over 40,000 fans and then later that evening, the undefeated Hawkeye football team defeated rival Minnesota in a very exciting game. The following day, Garza saw the Iowa basketball team beat Coppin State,

That’s a big weekend and in our interview following the visit, it left a strong impression.

"You could really feel that the community was behind the program. I got to see the basketball games, the wrestling meet, and the football game. Obviously the wrestling meet was crazy with 42,000 people and then being down on the field before the football game with 70,000 was very exciting. "

At that point in his recruitment, in addition to Iowa, Garza held offers from DePaul, George Washington, Central Michigan, and St. Joe’s with increasing interest from Stanford and Notre Dame.

This plan at that point was to wait to see what happened into the spring and take more visits.

One of those official visits was going to be to Iowa and Fran McCaffery, made a pretty bold move, bringing in Garza for his official visit in early May.

That spring, Garza blew up on the AAU circuit during the month of April. He was playing for Team Takeover in the Nike EYBL and piled up over 20 offers from several high major programs. McCaffery had built the foundation and gotten in earlier than just about every other school.

One of the key moves on any official visit was picking the host and McCaffery put Garza in the hands of Nicholas Baer, who to this day says he is very proud that he helped the Hawkeyes land the big man from Washington, D.C.

“It was a great visit,” Garza said. “The last time I didn’t really get to meet the players and this time I did. That was really what I wanted to do. All of the players were great. Nicholas Baer hosted me and he was great, as were all the guys on the team.”

One note from that visit, which included the usual visits with academic advisors, playing pickup ball with the current Iowa players, and sitting down to watch film with the coaches, was that Garza also picked up an offer from Louisville while he was on is official visit.

In August, after Garza had played in the NBA Players Top 100 camp and in Peach Jam and Las Vegas with his AAU team, he spoke with Rivals.com and the feeling was the big man was down to Iowa, Georgia, Alabama, Louisville, and perhaps Notre Dame. He also indicated he may be committing in October.

Here’s what Garza said in the article at the time about Iowa.

“I loved it there. I had a great time. I had already been there unofficially when they played Minnesota during the season. I got to know the players better. I really like what the staff is telling me about what I could do at Iowa, and I really like the opportunity.”

Of course, he didn’t make it to October before he ended his recruitment. Garza made a return trip to Iowa on the weekend of September 10th for the Iowa State/Iowa football game. As is tradition, Fran McCaffery took the recruits on campus down to the football field before the game and that’s when Garza made it official.

Fast forward to the next fall when Garza comes to campus. But, before school got underway, Iowa went on a foreign tour, playing in Germany, Italy, and Switzerland and Garza was the star of the trip.

In a precursor to what was to come, Fran McCaffery gave this quote about Garza after the first game of the foreign trip.

“Luka’s energy level is infectious. He’s incredibly intelligent and efficient. He’s always in the right place. That’s why I love him.”

In the four games, Garza averaged 22.5 points and 10.3 rebounds per game and shot 71% from the field. While the competition wasn’t great, looking back now it served as a preview of what Garza could become once he became a more fully developed college player.

After a pair of exhibition games against William Jewell and Belmont Abbey, Garza’s first game of his college career was against Chicago State. He started, scored 16 points and grabbed 5 rebounds in just 18 minutes of action. It’s also worth noting that Garza was a perfect 6-6 from the field in the 95-62 Iowa victory.

By the way, Garza’s first basket in an Iowa uniform came at the 18:08 mark of the first half on a layup to make the score 5-2 in favor of the Hawkeyes.

In the second game against Alabama State, Garza logged his first career double-double, scoring 11 points on 2-8 shooting, and grabbing 13 rebounds in a 92-58 Iowa victory. Since then he has 28 more double-doubles and counting.

It appeared that things were going along fine in his first season when adversity hit.

Iowa played in a tournament in the Cayman Islands and it wasn’t pretty. The Hawkeyes got beat by Lousiana Lafayette and Garza was held to no points. In the next game against South Dakota State, he grabbed 10 rebounds and scored four points in a second straight loss. Finally, Iowa got a win in the last game against UAB and Garza had a stronger game with 14 points and 7 rebounds.

But, this was a bit of a rocky period for Garza and for the Hawkeyes. Iowa lost five of six, including Big Ten games against Penn State and Indiana. Fran McCaffery then made a change to the starting lineup, moving fellow freshman Jack Nunge into it and Garza out of it.

Iowa’s next game was against Iowa State and it didn’t go well for the Hawkeyes, losing 84-78 in Ames. Garza came off the bench, played just 7 minutes, scored 2 points and grabbed 4 rebounds.

A lot of players might have sulked, but Garza went back to work.

He came off the bench for seven games before returning to the starting lineup on January 4th against Ohio State. During that time coming off the bench, Garza had some outstanding games, including 23 points and 13 rebounds against Southern and 25 points and 7 rebounds against Northern Illinois.

He got better, improved, and earn his spot back in the starting lineup and has been there ever since.

Garza finished strong in his freshman year, reaching double figures in each of the final six games of year, including averaging 16.5 points and 7.5 rebounds in two Big Ten Tournament games.

The season didn’t end with any sort of satisfaction for the Hawkeyes, who finished 4-14 in conference play and 14-19 overall. Yet, the future was bright for a young team who were determined to get to the NCAA Tournament the following year.

Then once again, adversity came for Garza.

This time it was a very concerning medical issue.

In early September as his sophomore year in college was getting underway, doctors discovered a cyst attached to his spleen. The cyst was nine pounds and thankfully it was benign.

At that time, Garza acknowledged the challenge of coming back from major surgery and being ready to play with the season starting in early November.

"It's just a hard situation. It’s a little adversity, but I've always been a person that works through adversity," Garza said at media day in October.

Of course, he made it back for the opening game against Missouri-Kansas City, playing 17 minutes and scoring 8 points and grabbing 3 rebounds. A few games later, Iowa was slated to play in the 2K Classic at Madison Square Garden with a high profile field of three other teams and of course, Garza was the best player on the floor in Iowa's two games. Bol Bol was the big man in the first game against Oregon, but Garza scored 12 points and grabbed 7 rebounds in Iowa’s win to move on to the championship game. The next night, Garza scored 22 points and grabbed 6 rebounds as the Hawkeyes knocked off UCONN to win the title and he was named MVP of the event.

Garza missed three games due to a sprained ankle in late December, but overall this was a strong season for the Hawkeyes. After winning 9 of 11 in January and early February, Iowa stumbled down the stretch, losing their last four of the regular season, but picked up a huge win over Illinois in the Big Ten Tournament and qualified for the NCAA Tournament as a #10 seed. The Hawkeyes beat #7 seed Cincinnati, 79-72 with Garza leading the way with 20 points and 7 rebounds. Two days later, the Hawkeyes pushed #2 seed Tennessee to the limit, rallying from a 21 point halftime deficit only to lose 83-77 in overtime.

While Iowa was close to getting the Sweet 16 monkey off their back the future was very bright. I’ve shared this before but someone close to the program shared with me after Garza’s freshman year that the program would take off once Luka became the focus.

We found out what that meant last season when Garza moved to center stage, having perhaps the greatest offensive season we have ever seen from an Iowa basketball player.

The breakout moment that we all look back upon now is the game at Michigan. Iowa lost the game 103-91 and Graza scored a career high 44 points and grabbing 8 rebounds. He forced a remarkable 11 fouls on Michigan players in the game.

He ended the season averaging 23.8 points per game and 9.8 rebounds per game. He was named Big Ten Player of the Year, first team consensus All American, and The Sports News named him national player of the year.

Unfortunately we all know how last season ended abruptly due to the Covid-19 pandemic and Garza had a decision to make about his future. He weighed his options and decided to come back for his senior year.

“I didn’t come back to score points and I didn’t come back to win awards,” he said. “I’ve won awards. I did that last year. My main focus is winning games.”

Garza and the Hawkeyes have done that. They are nationally ranked and sport a 16-6 overall record and 10-5 in league play. He’s averaging 24.7 points and 8.4 rebounds per game heading into Sunday’s game against Penn State.

Iowa has five regular season games remaining and then the Big Ten Tournament and the NCAA Tournament still ahead. That’s a long way of saying that the end is coming for Garza as a Hawkeye, but hopefully he's in line for an extended run in March.

It’s moments like what we will see on Sunday that make us reflect on Garza’s journey.

How Iowa found him and how in some ways, he found the perfect fit at Iowa.

Perhaps the most impressive trait that Garza possesses has nothing to do with basketball. He’s still the same humble and hardworking young man that arrived on the Iowa campus four years ago.

He’s still the same young man who is always generous with his time dealing with the media and with fans who want a moment of his time.

He’s still the same young man who remains grateful that Fran McCaffery offered him the opportunity of a lifetime at the University of Iowa.

“I’m just really thankful that Coach McCaffery found me and provided me an opportunity to represent the University of Iowa. I love this place. I’m just thankful for every time I get to wear the jersey.”

Luka Garza didn't grow up in Iowa, but in the last four years he has become the ideal version of what it means to be a Hawkeye and he's the perfect person to become the all-time leading scorer in program history.