Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - BONUS EPISODE - Iowa basketball head coach Fran McCaffery spoke to the media plus the Hawks landed a class of 2023 power forward

Episode Date: October 12, 2021

We've got a bonus episode for you all this afternoon. Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery spoke to the media about everything going on within the program including who was going to replace Luka Garza, what he likes about this year's team, and why this is one of the most unique teams he has ever had in his entire coaching career. The Iowa Hawkeyes also landed coveted 2023 forward Owen Freeman, which we discuss on today's show. Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!SweatBlockGet it today for 20% off at SweatBlock.com with promo code LockedOn, or at Amazon and CVS.Built BarBuilt Bar is a protein bar that tastes like a candy bar. Go to builtbar.com and use promo code “LOCKED15,” and you’ll get 15% off your next order.BetOnline AGThere is only 1 place that has you covered and 1 place we trust. Betonline.ag! Sign up today for a free account at betonline.ag and use that promocode: LOCKEDON for your 50% welcome bonus.Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.PrizePicksDon’t hesitate, check out PrizePicks.com and use promo code: “LOCKEDON” or go to your app store and download the app today. PrizePicks is daily fantasy made easy! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are Locked On Hawkeyes, your daily podcast on the Iowa Hawkeyes. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back, Hawkeye Nation, to a bonus episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Lockdown Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade, and we are back with a bonus episode today. We already dropped the show earlier today, covering everything about the rankings, about Riley Moss, and also doing an analytical deep dive into the Iowa versus Penn State game. What did we learn from that game, especially in regards to Tyler Goodson

and his success on the ground and where it came from? We talked about all that on the show this morning, but on today's show, on this afternoon show that you're listening to, we're breaking down everything that's going on with the Iowa basketball team. They recently landed a commit in the class of 2023, pretty unexpected at this point to get that guy, but then we got him and it's awesome. We're going to be talking about that. We're also talking about both the press conferences. Fran spoke to the media at Big Ten Media Days. He also had the Iowa Media Day.

Media was able to go to practice. We're going to talk about both of those things on the show today. We are a podcast covering everything across the Iowa Hawkeye landscape. So when there is a lot of things going on, football and basketball, we have to cover both. on the show today. We are a podcast covering everything across the Iowa Hawkeye landscape. So when there is a lot of things going on, football and basketball, we have to cover both. So that being said, I want to thank you all for making the Locked on Hawkeyes your first listen every single day. You can find the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get podcasts

at Monday through Friday and also on YouTube for free at Locked on Hawkeyes. Let's get into it, though. As we briefly discussed on the show this morning, Iowa did land a commit in the class of 2023. Owen Freeman, a guy who, again, we were not expecting to get Owen Freeman to this point. A 2023 forward, 6'9", 220 pounds, out of Illinois. Now, if you were to go look at his 24-7 rating,

you would see nothing. If you were to go look at his rivals-7 rating, you would see nothing. If you were to go look at his rivals rating, you'll see a three-star. Those ratings are wrong. This guy is clearly a coveted prospect at this point. 11 offers. And let me read you some of these offers that Iowa beat him out for. Illinois. Michigan State. Ohio State, Purdue,

Wisconsin, Indiana, Northwestern. This is a kid who had offers from half of the Big Ten, the best basketball conference in the nation. Iowa able to land him coming into this recruiting weekend. He came, he went to the Iowa-Penn State game, wasn't expecting to commit anytime soon. Really wanted to take it day by day, get a sense for how Iowa was doing things, but had some other visits lined up. He wasn't expecting to make a decision, but after what appears to be a clearly phenomenal visit and obviously a great atmosphere, the Iowa-Penn State game, a great host and Patrick McCaffrey he ultimately commits to the Iowa Hawkeyes which is a big get for Fran McCaffrey as they're still trying to round out their class of 2022 they're already getting a head start in

this class of 2023 and again I mentioned the fact that he is a three-star recruit according to rivals and has no stars according to 24-7 sports my guess is by the end of this thing by the end of this as it all shakes out he will be a four- guess is by the end of this thing, by the end of this, as it all shakes out, he will be a four-star recruit by the end of the recruiting cycle. He's just getting involved in the AAU circuit. He's lost some weight. He's a real versatile scorer against 6'9", 220 pounds.

The guy can dribble. He can shoot. He's still working on perfecting some different shooting techniques. But from everything I've seen or read, this guy is going to be the real deal. And it's a big get for the Iowa Hawkeyes. Now, speaking of trying to replace Luka Garza,

we heard from Fran McCaffrey a couple times in the last couple of days. And the biggest question is, how are the Iowa Hawkeyes going to replace Luka Garza? And it's not going to be easy. It's going to be a team effort. But what Fran McCaffrey had to say across the board, I thought was really enlightening and very encouraging about

the prospects of this Iowa basketball team going into this year under Fran McCaffrey. He said, who is going to step into that role? We don't have anyone 6'11 that's going to average 20 points a game. Where are the rest of the points going to come from? Will it be Keegan Murray? We just talked about him. Will it be Patrick McCaffrey? Will it be Bohannon moving over to the off-guard position? We have young guards coming in at the point. What big guys will step up for us? Will it be Keegan's brother, Chris, who is a tremendous player?

I think he's got a chance. Phillip Abracha, the transfer from North Dakota. Maybe our young guys, Joshua Gundelay and Riley Mulvey. We may play smaller, but I think we've had as much depth as we've had in a long time, so we'll see how that works out. Fran McCaffrey is not worried about the talent his team has, and yes, he's not going to go into media days and say our team stinks, we're screwed. Anytime you lose a two-time All-American, the player of the year in Luka Garza, and an NBA draft pick who's going to be on an NBA roster to start the season and also another NBA draft pick in Joey's camp.

It is going to be hurtful to your team. But to an extent, I think this team has the right players. They could play team ball. Yes, honestly, on today's show I made kind of an analogy of the Iowa football team to Billy Beane's Oakland A's. I would equate what the Iowa basketball team is doing. They are now moving away from being a star-studded roster in a sense. I think there's a possibility for guys to step up.

They are not the Brooklyn Nets. They are now the Atlanta Hawks, a team who has some very good players on that team, but across the board, they play good as a team. Remember that Atlanta Hawks team that had five guys who were starters and were not anywhere near kind of an all-American caliber type player. They were not a LeBron James by any means, but they were able to make it pretty far into the playoffs. I look at it like that. That's where Iowa is right now. Now there's a possibility multiple guys could step up. I think the easiest one to look at is Keegan Murray.

I think number two is probably Patrick McCaffrey. And Frank McCaffrey had a few things to say about that. The fact that a lot of guys are playing new roles in this year. This is the first time in his coaching career where really year over year, the role of each player is completely flipping on its head. Who's going to be the number one guy? Who's going to be the number two guy? We're going to talk a little bit about that coming up here in a few short moments. I do want to tell

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I did it and it's been phenomenal. Get it today for 20% off at sweatblock.com with the promo code LOCKEDON, that's L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N or Amazon and CVS. And I want to thank you all for making the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast wherever you get podcasts at and also on YouTube at Locked on Hawkeyes. So when we were taking a break,

one of the things that we talked about was Famer Caffrey saying every guy is going to play a different role. And here was his specific quote he said. I said this at Big Ten Media Day. I don't know if I've ever coached a team where everybody will have a different role than they had last year. It's fairly unique. When you think about it,

again, we talked about Luca Garza is gone. Joey's camp is gone. So who's going to step into those roles. I kind of picked it out. My predictions. These are, some of these are easy to see,

right? But you're a star player. You're number one guy. The guy you turn to when you need a bucket, is not Luki Garza anymore. It's now Keegan Murray. Who is your Scottie Pippen? Your number two. Last year was Joe Wieskamp.

This year, it's Patrick McCaffrey. Now, some people might not agree with this next analogy, but I consider Klay Thompson really a number three guy. Who is your Klay Thompson? Or, if you want to use the Atlanta Hawks reference, which is a lot better probably actually at this point, who is your Clay Thompson? Or if you want to use the Atlanta Hawks reference, which is a lot better probably actually at this point, who is your Kyle Korver? Last year, it was CJ Frederick coming off a lot of ball screens.

This year, it's Jordan Bohannon. Who's your Rajon Rondo? I'm always going to butcher his name. Last year, it was Jordan Bohannon and Connor McCaffrey. Not a very good Rondo. This year, it's Joe Toussaint and Aaron Ulis. So you have these guys who are going to be stepping into different roles. At that center spot, we need a defensive enforcer.

We need guys who can protect the rim. We need guys who are going to get rebounds and can get that put-away bucket. We don't need a big time score, but what I think is going to be really unique about this team is the fact that they can play so many different lineup combinations. And we've talked a little bit about this. What I thought was the best lineup combination coming into the season is Joe Toussaint at the one, Jordan Bohannon at the two, Patrick McCaffrey at the three,

Keegan Murray at the four, and Phillip Rabracha at the five. That gives you a lot of versatility. It gives you a lot of length and allows you to play very strong defense while also keeping a good shooting presence on the floor. The key to that, though, was was Conner going to stay or come off the bench? And it sounds like that is going to be the case. Fran McCaffrey said Conner's role won't change that much. He may be coming off the bench.

It would change a little bit there, but he's still going to play four positions. Again, this is a guy who can guard one through four. He can also bring the ball up. He can also post up a little bit. He's still going to be the guy though, that he constantly talking to guys on the floor and on the bench. Fran McCaffrey really looks at Connor McCaffrey as kind of a player coach, a guy who's on the floor and can coach up his guys. Connor McCaffrey is still going to get probably 15 to 20 minutes, but you can see the evolution of this team. They need Keegan Murray and they need Patrick McCaffrey to really step up

and own this team. But first and foremost, they need both those guys to be healthy. And it sounds like Patrick McCaffrey at this point is not exactly healthy. He said he's had a great summer, but he's had ankle issues since we started. He sprained one, then sprained the other. He has been limited for about four or five weeks, so we need to get him back out here. Now, again, we talked about this team.

Frank McCaffrey has talked about it. That is going to be a huge setback if he cannot stay healthy. The one good thing we have going, though, is there is a significant amount of depth, and it allows Iowa to really mix and match the lineups quite a bit. You have four guys who could play the point, and arguably a couple others as well. But you have Joe, Jordan, Aaron, and Connor.

That shooting guard spot, you've got plenty of guys there as well. You have Tony Perkins. You've got Jordan Bohannon. You've got Peyton Sanford. Connor McCaffrey can even play that. Patrick McCaffrey can and has played the two when you go a bit bigger. Chris Murray can play the two. At the three, you've got a plethora of guys there.

Keegan, Chris, Patrick, Connor. At the four, basically to switch those guys around, put them right back there. Maybe add in Phillip or Bracha as well. Peyton Sandberg could also play that three. At that five, you got Riley, you got Josh, you got some other big guys down there as well. Austin Ash is a guy to look out for as well. If we need a bucket off the bench, potentially late, late in the game,

I don't expect him to get a ton of playing time. But these are guys that are coming in. There's a significant amount of variability to this lineup and what Fran McCaffrey can do. And that's exciting and also concerning. Now, a couple years ago, we saw Fran McCaffrey with a very limited bench do a very good job of rotating guys in and out. Prior to that, I thought one of the knocks on Fran

was that he did try too much to get guys in and out prior to that i thought one of the knocks on fran was that he did try too much to get guys in the game and it ruined the flow of other guys we saw it with isaiah moss he was unable to get the rhythm of several games and would just sit on the bench for 20 minutes at a time but this past year actually gave me a lot of hope because fran mccaffrey basically said you know what i want guys on the floor that i'm know what? I want guys on the floor that I'm confident in, and I want guys on the floor that are going to play both ends of the basketball court. When Iowa was struggling in several games defensively, he just said, screw it, wiped them, put a whole other lineup in there, and they performed well. In fact, that second string won a couple games for Iowa.

So that's going to be a really interesting thing to watch as the season starts and as the season progresses. What is Frank going to do for lineup rotations? What are his key go-to lineups? And what are going to be his in-game matchup changes? When you're playing a team like Illinois where they have Kofi Coburn, you might go bigger most of that game. But what if going bigger isn't helping you?

What if you need to go smaller to put some pressure on Kofi because you'll have quicker guys guarding him, but you're going to give up a little bit of size. So it'll be really interesting to see how does Fran McCaffrey tinker with these lineups. He had a really good comment on this as well, which we're going to cover here in just a few moments. But I do want to tell you about prizepicks.com. Prizepicks.com is made for you. College ball fanatics out there.

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Or go to your app store and download the app today. PrizePix is daily fantasy made easy. All right, so when we last heard from Fran McCaffrey yesterday, one of the things he had mentioned was his depth. And he said, the depth we have is really exciting. We've got a lot of guys who are good. The practices have been very competitive. I've been switching the lineups quite a bit.

Everything we do in practice is competitive. So every segment is one team wins, one team loses, and they've been going at each other. So it sort of gives you an indication of who is ready to compete and who's capable of playing multiple positions like we think they are. But we force them to do that. And so we can do a bigger lineup, a smaller lineup. We can go without a five-man, traditional five-man,

and three guards and two 6'9s. There's a lot of ways we can go. And I think from a standpoint, it's a different kind of team. He also mentioned with this year the fact that there's going to be a lot of opportunity to play better defense going into this season. And I think when you think about the lineups, this gives Iowa a lot, since they have so much positional versatility, whereas in previous years, they had a couple guys who were slotted into spots. You can play several guys up and down the lineup. And the guy I want to quickly call out is Chris Murray. Chris is going to be a guy who surprises a lot of people.

Last year, it was Keegan Murray. This year, it's going to be Chris. People were constantly in my mentions asking, what is wrong with Chris? Is Chris any good? Is Chris as good as Keegan? Why isn't Chris playing if Keegan's playing? I'll tell you, there's a log jam. When you have a guy like Luka Garza, who's going to get 38 minutes a game, and Joe Wieskamp's going to get 34 to 36 minutes a game, and CJ Frederick was going to get 30 something minutes a game, and Gerard Bohan is going to get 30 something minutes a game. It's tough to get other guys in there, especially when you have a log jam at that three and four position, which Iowa did have. They no longer have that.

And Chris Murray is going to be a big-time role player for this offense and this defense. On Chris, Fran McCaffrey said, Chris, I think, is a very good three-point shooter. They can play together, with Keegan, he was saying. Like I said, we can be versatile and team in terms of the offense we run, but also how we play defensively. We can switch. We can switch with guard because those two can guard backcourt players,

which is not easy in this league. They're both 6'8". Both have 6'11 wingspans. It'll be fun watching them both play together this year. People are sleeping on the guys that Iowa has that they have not seen. Chris Murray, in my opinion, could win sixth man of the year this year. Keegan Murray could be first team all-conference. Jordan Bohannon is probably going to be third or second team all-conference Big Ten.

He is going to drain threes, having so many open looks coming off the screens. They are going to be force-feeding him the ball there. I think Patrick McCaffrey could also be a first-team All-Big Ten player. You can see his ability to get to the basket. He just needs to finish a little bit better. He's gotten stronger. He's still working on the conditioning. He's getting healthier.

Patrick McCaffrey and Keegan Murray, people need to watch out because these are two guys to watch out for for this Iowa Hawkeye basketball team. And a lot of national media pundits have Iowa as a ninth or tenth team in the Big Ten Conference. I'm here to tell you, I think Iowa could finish three, four, five. They're not going to have the Hunter Dickinson of their team. Keegan Murray is a guy who is probably going to be drafted higher than people value him in college basketball.

Because he can do so many things well but he's not a guy who's going to be on the ESPN highlight reel by scoring 40 points every night or getting 25 rebounds because he does literally everything well people forget Patrick McCaffrey was a top 100 recruit who had to deal with a lot of after effects of chemotherapy and having cancer. People are sleeping on this team, and you shouldn't be. Joe Toussaint is a guard who can run with any guard in the Big Ten. He can defend any guard in the Big Ten.

We even had that level of defense at the point guard position in a very long time from a starter at that point guard position. Now, granted, Joe Toussaint did start two years ago. He was still working on some things, but it's really just been Joe Toussaint at this point guard position. Now, granted, Joe Toussaint did start two years ago. He was still working on some things, but it's really just been Joe Toussaint at this point. Aaron Ulis, also a guy who can play outstanding defense. Tony Perkins is a shooting guard we haven't had in a while, a shooting guard who can really make plays and drive to the basket.

Maybe not as good of an outside shooter, but a guy who can get to the basket. We didn't have a lot of those guys for a while, whereas we had a ton of very capable and fantastic three-point shooters, we have a nice mix of guys who can shoot the three, but also can get to the rim and can make a shot for themselves. And with all the motion that they do with the Iowa offense, with how much movement there is, there's going to be a lot of open looks.

But what is really exciting to me is the fact that we have so much position versatility, positional versatility defensively. We're going to cause a lot of problems for teams when they're trying to play offense against Iowa's defense. This is not going to be the same Iowa defense. I expect from a Ken Palm perspective, Iowa's defense should be in the top 25. I completely believe that. How many teams have three guys, six, eight or higher, Patrick, Keegan, Chris,

who can guard one through five? Who can run with those guys? Not a lot of teams. There's going to be a lot of hands being in the passing lanes. We have some good, good, sound defensive guys. And you have a Connor McCaffrey, a Jordan Mohan. You've got veteran leaders there who can help direct these guys as well. Joe Toussaint has taken that step up to be a veteran leader too.

This is going to be a very good defensive team and an offensive team that I think is also going to be above what we are expecting coming into the season after losing several big-time players. That does do it, though, for our bonus episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Just a reminder that we will be back tomorrow breaking down everything from the Kirk Behron's press conference and also the Jeff Braun press conference.

We're discussing all that on tomorrow's episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. If you liked the show, give us that five-star review. Make sure to subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at, and also follow us on YouTube as well. Hit that subscribe button so you can get every single show sent to you. And thank you all for tuning into this bonus episode. Thank you again for everything you're doing, all the listenership,

all the support, the love. I absolutely appreciate it. Have a phenomenal Tuesday. And as always, Hawkeye Nation, let's go Hawks.