Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Iowa Basketball: GIVE ME TWO CLAPS AND A RIC FLAIR BECAUSE MCCAFFERY IS BACK BABY WOOO!!!

Episode Date: April 22, 2022

Connor McCaffery has made it official, he will come back to play for the Hawkeyes for a 6th season and finish out his college career as a Hawkeye. He along with the other 9 players currently on scholarship will try to lead the Hawkeyes to a back-to-back B1G championship run. The question still remains, will Iowa have trouble getting back on their feet after having a number of very talented guys either leaving for the draft or transferring to a different program?Now-a-days it seems like the off-season for college athletes is no longer a thing. Athletes are constantly finding new and different ways to make themselves better in the off-season and it seems like they never stop working on their game. What happened to the off-season?Iowa mens basketball coach Fran McCaffery has name Courtney Eldridge as the new assistant coach in replacement of former assistant coach Billy Taylor who announced last week that he is leaving Iowa's program to take a head coaching position at Elon University in North Carolina. Luckily, Taylor has a lot of good experience as a head coach having coached at 3 different colleges prior to joining Iowa's program.I also got the chance to sit down and talk about one of Iowa football's young recruits in Joe Otting. A big offensive lineman out of Topeka, Kansas shows a lot of potential as not only a great talent on the football field but also as an all around athlete.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!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.BetOnlineBetOnline.net has you covered this season with more props, odds and lines than ever before. BetOnline – Where The Game Starts!Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you.Athletic GreensAthletic Greens is going to give you a FREE 1 year supply of immune-supporting Vitamin D AND 5 FREE travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com/COLLEGE. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back Hawkeye Nation to another episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked on Podcast Network. As always, I am your host, Wright Hillpiper, and I want to thank you all for making the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast your first listen every single day. You can find the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast for free wherever you get your podcasts at and also on YouTube by searching Locked on Hawkeyes. So we've got a lot of stuff to get into today. I think I've got four segments that I want to talk about.

So we've got a lot of stuff to cover. First thing I want to talk about is Connor McCaffrey. That's right. I'm sure you heard he is coming back for a sixth season with the Hawkeyes. McCaffrey announced the news of his return privately to the team during the awards banquet that took place last night and also announced his decision via his own Twitter page. Throughout McCaffrey's career, he's been a very good player in the Iowa program,

and I think his decision to come back for another year is really going to change the feeling, the overall feeling in the locker room going into next season. And with the departures of, you know, guys like Josh Ogendale, Joe Toussaint, Keegan Murray, and possibly Chris Murray, you know, he, Chris did declare for the draft, but he does remain eligible for next season. There are a lot of questions floating around about whether or not Iowa is going to be able to perform as well as they did last season in the upcoming season. I think that with the news of McCaffrey's return, a little bit of worry and a little bit of weight will be lifted off of the shoulders of Iowa fans and Iowa teammates alike. teammates alike. Obviously, there's still going to be a little bit of worry if the Hawkeyes are going to be able to overcome expectations. But I know that at least for me, I'll sleep a little bit better at night knowing that Iowa still has a lot of very solid talent coming back next year.

Because there are quite a few guys that are coming back next year. And there's a few guys that are coming up in the upcoming season as freshmen that hopefully can make their mark on the team in the upcoming season. And over the last five years, McCaffrey has spent with the Hawkeyes program. He has played in 134 games. And on top of that started every single game for the Hawkeyes played from 2019 to this past season, which is 2021,2022. After coming off the bench last season, he didn't exactly have the best start to his college career, coming straight off the bench, averaging two and a half points per game and two and a half rebounds per game, while still managing to hit 34% from beyond the arc. And if you've been following college basketball news for the last couple of days, then you know that McCaffrey alongside Keegan Murray were awarded the Chris Street Award during the team banquet last night.

If you don't know, the Chris Street Award is given to an Iowa player, or in this case, players who best represent the attitude and love for the game that Street did when he played for the Hawkeyes. And also, if you don't know, Chris Street was an Iowa basketball player who passed away due to a car accident in 1993 when he was a junior playing for the Hawkeyes. So it's nice to see that McCaffrey and Murray are both getting that award. I think they both deserve it, and they are both the epitome of what the definition of that award is.

And I think that, you know, next season, regardless of the number of guys leaving, McCaffrey will most likely return to doing exactly what he did this past season on the court for the Hawkeyes. And that is to defend guards and forwards. But most importantly, the team is definitely going to be looking for him to step into a major leadership role and hopefully lead the Hawkeyes to another Big Ten championship, which is what we would all like to see in theory. sure that it is being run in the way that Coach McCaffrey wants it to so that they can have success moving forward as more and more guys continue to leave, as more and more talent continues to leave from the Hawkeyes program. As I mentioned, there are a couple guys coming up as freshmen this upcoming season, so it's going to be a very big ask for McCaffrey to sort of step into that player-coach

role, coach-player role, whatever you want to call it, and really lead the team in the way that it should be led and make sure that everybody is doing what they should be doing. McCaffrey spoke in an interview yesterday about his decision to return to Carver-Hawkeye for one last ride and said, quote, I've been playing a lot of pickup, going to the wellness center sometimes, and then we'll play over at this place in North Liberty. Some guys from there, some semi pros that live in town and some guys from you and I come down as well. Uh, McCaffrey also mentioned that he has been staying away from the weight room as of right now, and is just trying to stay in shape during the off season to help him for when you know his time comes that he will step back out on the court as a hawkeye and i i never really

um i never really understood the whole you know not lifting in the off season sort of thing i understand that you you want to work on your game and you want to work on fundamentals um so that you can come back the best player that you can be. But why not put on a little weight at the same time? You know, muscle never hurt anybody else. So, but that's just my opinion. Again, it's, I'm assuming that there's something that, you know, there's some sort of workout regimen and program that, you know, Coach McCaffrey is putting these guys through to ensure that they are going to be the best that they can possibly be coming up this next season. Whatever their game plan is going into the offseason for guys working out,

as long as they're staying in shape, getting the chance to play basketball here and there in their own sort of way, whether it's going up to North Liberty to play at Court 45 or it's just messing around in the rec center over at the University of Iowa. As long as these guys are staying in shape and are doing something consistently over the off season to make sure that they are going to be better when they come back than they were when they left is very important. The second thing I want to talk about today is the fact that nowadays there are absolutely no off days for college athletics whatsoever. Uh, before we talk about that, I want to talk about built bar built bar is so, so amazing. This is the time of the

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Okay, so as I mentioned before that, there's no days off in college athletics anymore. There's no such thing as an off-season. You can call it an off-season when they're not playing games or wrestling matches or whatever it is. There's no such thing as an off-season. And naturally with the awards banquet for Iowa men's basketball having come and gone, you would think that now the off season for Iowa basketball is in full swing and you would be wrong. You know what I mean? Every year in college

sports, it seems like the off season gets shorter and shorter. And at this point it's, it's pretty much non-existent guys are always going to be doing something to better themselves for the upcoming season, especially those who know that they have the opportunity to hold a starting spot or are going to be coming back in to a starting spot. And whether it's basketball guys playing pickup games at the local Y or football guys playing summer seven on seven, or even baseball guys taking batting practice at their local high school field. It doesn't matter. Every single one of those athletes is doing something and anything that they can during the offseason to make sure, as I mentioned, that they come back next season better than they left off the previous season. And take, for example, Iowa Senior Center, Philip Rebraca.

He recently said in an interview, quote, I really haven't taken any time off. I've taken maybe one or two days off but I'm still playing basketball I've been playing at the U of I rec center and private private runs at court 45 in North Liberty so I'm playing with pros and other basketball players I think it's been going really well for how long we've been out of season and as I mentioned earlier Connor McCaffrey will be coming back as a Hawkeye next season for his sixth year in the program. And that's going to help out tremendously with overall team morale and help Iowa's chances of going for another Big Ten title run. And I forgot to mention this earlier, but with McCaffrey coming back, Iowa is now going to

have 10 total players on their roster holding scholarships, and that does include those two incoming freshmen that I talked about earlier, DeSante Bowen and Josh Dix. So Iowa isn't necessarily in trouble in the upcoming season, but they are losing a lot of talent that they were able to utilize this last season that helped them get to the Big Ten Championship and ultimately win it. So it's not necessarily something that they're going to have to worry about, but it is something that they're going to have to continue to work towards so that they can come back and be just as strong of a team as they were last season. I don't see any reason for fans or analysts or whoever it is to worry about the talent that's coming back because I think Iowa is in a good place when it comes to where they're at talent-wise, but they're losing a lot of guys that were very, very important.

So they're going to have to work They've got to work harder. They've got to figure out something that they can do in order to ensure that they're going to be able to play at the exact same level and quality that they played with this past season. Hopefully, they're going to be able to figure that out, but it's obviously all near say. You can't expect them to be good,, you can't expect them to be good and you can't expect them to be bad either. So, you know, personally, I don't, I don't think there's a whole lot to worry about as

long as coach McCaffrey and, and Connor McCaffrey can, you know, bring this team together and figure out a way to lead it the best that they possibly can. Then Iowa shouldn't have any worries going into the upcoming season. The third thing that I want to talk about is who is replacing Billy Taylor. Iowa has not officially, because it's pending approval, but has hired a new replacement assistant coach for Billy Taylor. We're going to get to that in just a second. Before we get to that, I want to talk about BetOnline. BetOnline.net is your number one source for all of your betting stats and sports info. Find all of the latest sports developments, league reviews, and news,

including this year's basketball playoffs and the start of Major League Baseball season. BetOnline is your continued source for all of your sporting wagering information from live betting to playoffs to esports and more. Head over to the website today or use your mobile device to learn more about the trends and action. BetOnline, it's where the game starts. Now, as I mentioned, Iowa has found a replacement for assistant coach Billy Taylor. Iowa's replacement for assistant coach Billy Taylor, who left for a head coaching position at Elon University in North Carolina this past week. Before we get into who's going

to replace Taylor, I want to touch on what coach McCaffrey had to say about Taylor's departure from the team. In the meeting before the awards banquet, coach McCaffrey stated, quote, I thought it was going to happen last year. I was glad he came back and helped us win a championship. I'm thrilled for Billy. He deserves it and he's ready. I talked to him today and he's very excited. I recently covered who I thought may end up being Taylor's replacement. And McCaffrey mentioned yesterday that it will in fact be Courtney Elridge, who is exactly who I thought it was going to be. And he's currently the director of recruiting and development for the, and player development,

excuse me, for the Hawkeyes. Coach McCaffrey said simply, that's the plan. It's pending approval, but we're planning on promoting Courtney. Coach McCaffrey also said that the program plans to move a little bit slower in making the decision on who will replace Eldridge as director of recruiting and player development. Obviously, that's just as important of a position as being an assistant coach, but McCaffrey wants to take the time to make sure that there's somebody, a guy or a woman, whoever it is, that can fit in that position really, really well, just like Eldridge did. I think that McCaffrey only moved this fast in the case of

replacing Billy Taylor because he already knew that he wanted Eldridge to be in that spot. He thinks that he's going to be able to help the team in the same ways, or maybe even in better ways that Billy Taylor was able to in his time with the Hawkeyes. And I've mentioned before, Billy Taylor, when I talked about when he first announced that he was going to Elon, Billy Taylor has a lot of experience with the head coaching or with a head coaching job. He's done it quite a few times in the past for, I believe, three other colleges, two of them being D1 and another one being D2. And that D2 college, he turned in three years, he turned their record from 14 and 15 to 28 and 3. So I know that he's probably going to have success at Elon. And I commend him for being able to

overlook his, I don't want to say passions, but you know what I mean. I'm glad to see that he's able to take that step and go into a full-time leadership role as a head coach, even if it is at a smaller university like Elon. Elon has never been in the NCAA tournament, so I really hope that we can see Billy Taylor have some success with Elon in his first season there. Hopefully he's able to turn that program around a little bit and maybe even lead him to a tournament spot, hopefully, in this upcoming season. We'll have to see how things go.

I'm extremely happy for Taylor. So is Coach McCaffrey, and I'm assuming the rest of the Hawkeyes team and coaching staff. But as I said, Courtney Eldridge will be the replacement for Taylor in the upcoming season. I can't wait to see what he's able to do with the team. It's going to be very exciting to see. He's been working with Iowa for a while now, and he has extensive knowledge of the team. He has extensive knowledge of the players and how the program is run as a whole. So I think that he's going to be very successful in filling Taylor's empty position.

Now, the fourth thing that I want to talk about today is the story of the day. Yes, I'm going to be making this a staple on this podcast. Now, when I first took over, I wanted to kind of figure out something that I could do to make this podcast my own and kind of bring it into who I am as a person. I love to tell stories. I love writing stories. That's one of my passions. So I figured that a story of the day would fit perfect with this podcast.

I've done it since I started, um, doing this podcast. And I think it's something that you all really enjoy. And I know that it's something that I really enjoy. So it's something that I'm going to continue to do. I know the last couple of days we've had, um, a little bit different, uh, differently structured podcast. Um, but one thing that I would really like to try and stay consistent with is having a story of the day

every day. Um, you know, and it's not always going to be good news. Uh, yesterday we talked about Germany Harris, um, and his OWI charge and how that's going to affect the Iowa football team this upcoming season. Um, and most of the time it will be about new recruits, um, whether it be football recruits, um, basketball recruits, wrestling recruits, especially the Iowa women's team, because they're going to have a significant number of recruits for the upcoming season. And many of which we've talked about already, I believe 10 of them we've talked about already. So this is something that I want to keep and stay consistent with on this podcast. And as I said, it's not always going to be good

news. This is the down and dirty section of this podcast. And that's why I put it at the end. This is the stuff that you're not necessarily going to hear on an extremely positive podcast. I'm not here to just report what I read. I'm here to talk about the stuff that nobody wants to talk about, but everybody wants to hear. So that's, I mean, that's my little rant for this episode. I just wanted to mention that I'm going to try my best to stay consistent with having a story of the day every day as we produce this podcast every day. And it's not always going to be stuff that everybody wants to hear. I'm going to have some hot takes sometimes, but I will try to keep my opinions to a very, very solid low point

as to not upset anybody. But anyways, with that out of the way, Joe Odding speaks on his Iowa football visit. One of Iowa's young recruits from this offseason is a 6'4", 270-pound offensive lineman out of Topeka, Kansas by the name of Joe Otting. Otting is a standout athlete at Hayden High in Topeka as a football, basketball, and track athlete, but he has his sights set on playing football at the D1 level when he graduates in the class of 2023. Iowa is definitely not the only school that has given a scholarship offer to Odding, as several other D1 teams have put their foot in the door, including Baylor, Iowa State, Kansas, Kansas State, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, and New Mexico,

all very solid programs. But it sounds like Odding is really leaning towards playing for Iowa. And I think that's really going to help out Iowa's offensive line quite a bit when he comes into the program. He he's, he plays basketball. He's a standout at basketball, which means his footwork is extremely, extremely good. And he's a standout track athlete too, which means that he is overall athletic when it comes to, I'm sure he does throwing events as well as running events. So he's just overall an athletic guy and I'm excited to see whether or not he decides to come to Iowa. Obviously I will have that news as soon as I get

it on whether or not he commits. But Odding says he likes the way the offensive line unit is ran at Iowa saying quote I think I would fit very well the technique the o-line uses and how the o-line gets people off excuse me off the line is very athletic based and that fits me well they like the way I pull and how I move they also like my toughness and competitiveness lastly the type of person and teammate I am was also something that they really liked about me. He is, Odding is probably one of the more athletic offensive lineman recruits that Iowa has had simply because he, he does a lot. He doesn't just play football and lift weights.

You know what I mean? He's, he's in the basketball or he's in the gym playing basketball. He's out on the track, running, running track events and doing throwing events and all that sort of thing. So he's overall, and I can't say it enough. He's overall an extremely, extremely athletic kid. And I really hope that Iowa gets the chance to pick up this recruit, uh, in the class of 2023, because I think he would be really exciting to watch. And a lot of people overlook the O-line position and they they're like, oh, well, it's not really all that exciting. You know, it's not really all that exciting. You know, it's more fun to watch wide receiver recruits or running back recruits just because, you know, they move around a lot more. But I think that, I think that Odding coming in

as an O-lineman is going to be very exciting to see. And I think that he is going to play if, you know, if he does come to Iowa, I think that eventually he will end up coming into a very, very influential role on Iowa's O-line. Obviously, we're going to have to wait and see if he does end up committing. And if he does end up committing, we'll have to wait until 2023 to see what his talents are like. So once again, I will keep you all updated on Iowa's recruitment situations, whether it be women's wrestling, men's wrestling, basketball, men's basketball, women's basketball, and football as well. Those are the main things we talk about on this podcast. So that is it for the podcast today. A little bit shorter of an episode today.

I apologize about that, but I got through everything that I wanted to get through. So that is going to be it. Make sure you continue to follow the Locked On podcast on Spotify or on Apple Podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts at, and also on YouTube. We will be getting back to YouTube very shortly. And you can also follow the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast on Twitter and on Instagram as well at LockedOnIowa. I'm going to start posting a lot more on Twitter. I will be fully transparent with you.

I will probably be more active on Twitter than I will be on Instagram just because that is what most people use when it comes to sports news. So I will definitely be more active over there. I'm going to be posting jokes, memes, news, episode updates, all that kind of stuff. So go check out that over there. You can also check out me on my personal accounts at Rye Hill on Twitter and on Instagram as well.

So you're welcome to go check those out. Go give me a follow. Go give the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast a follow. That's it for today's episode. Thank you all for tuning in once again, and we will see you all on Monday.