Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - Joe Wieskamp declares for NBA Draft | Gustafson drafted 17th overall in WNBA Draft | Exciting news for the future of the show

Episode Date: April 12, 2019

A much shorter episode today as we have some awesome stuff coming your way very shortly. We talk about Joe Wieskamp's decision to declare for the NBA Draft and what it means for the Iowa Hawkeyes in addition to covering the WNBA Draft and how Megan Gustafson fell in the draft. The other topic on today's show is Noah Fant and TJ Hockenson's decision to attend the NFL Draft in Nashville. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You are listening to the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering the Iowa Hawkeyes for the Locked On Sports Network, hosted by Andrew Wade, editor at DearOldGold.com. Welcome to a beautiful Friday morning edition of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. I am your host, Andrew Wade, editor over at DearOldGold.com, and we have a very short episode for you today. We're not going to go into as lengthy of an episode as we typically do, just because it has been an action-packed week here on the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast. Just to give you a quick recap, if you are joining our show for the very first time,

typically we try to keep these shows to around 20 to 23 minutes, you know, trying to let you have something to listen to either on your morning or evening commute, you know, to and from work. But this week has been a little bit different. We've had the opportunity to bring on quite a few special guests, and we have additional opportunities coming up here in the very, very near future to bring on some more special guests. On Sunday, we had a special Sunday morning episode where we talked to Matthew Crawford,

the general manager of the Iowa United. And the Iowa United is this year's the basketball tournament team that's going to be comprised of four of Iowa's main universities. So basically all four of Iowa's main universities, Drake, Iowa State, Iowa, UNI. And they're going to be playing in The Basketball Tournament, which is a $2 million winner-take-all tournament. So Matt joined the show with us on Sunday,

talked a little bit about his team and how he's put it together so far. At that time, they had announced four players for the team. It was Wes Washpin, Nicholas Bayer, Tyrese McGee, and Reed Timmer. So they announced those four guys. We talked a little bit about what those four guys bring to the team and how Matt has kind of crafted this team into his idea of what a team could be to win the basketball tournament. So on Sunday's episode, we talked about that. Make sure you tuned into that. It was a fantastic episode. It's the basketball tournament. So on Sunday's episode, we talked about that. Make sure you tuned into that. It was a fantastic episode. It's an awesome opportunity,

what they're doing, putting together all four of the big schools in Iowa, and they're playing for a great cause for the veterans. So we had him on Sunday morning episode. On Monday, we talked a little bit about some of the Iowa Hawkeye happenings, what's happening in Iowa Hawkeye sports, talking about Tyler Cook and who could replace him.

So if you want to check out that episode, please do that as well. On Wednesday, we had quarterback Deuce Hogan, a four-star quarterback commit from the class of 2020 for the Iowa football team. That interview was fantastic. Make sure you're tuning into that, especially if you are an Iowa football fan. Deuce Hogan is a great young man. I love talking to him. Very polite, very respectable kid.

Had a very good head on his shoulders from that short conversation I had with him. So make sure you tune into that from Wednesday's episode. And then coming up, though, we have some really great stuff coming up on our future episodes. We are going to be having Matt Crawford join the show again, where we talk about the full release team. So they finally released all nine names on that team. It is Josh Young, Reed Timmer, and Nick McGlynn from Drake. You have Wes Washpin from UNI. You have Matt Tibby from UW-Milwaukee, also played at Kirkwood.

You have Peter Jock and Nicholas Bayer from Iowa. And you have Marcus Fizer and Tyrus McGee from Iowa State. So we're going to be talking to him about what this team kind of means for him, how he brought all nine of these guys together, and how he envisions this team kind of working in conjunction with each other heading into the basketball tournament, which begins in mid-July. He's also going to be joining us for another episode where we make a very, very special announcement

for all of you Iowa basketball fans out there. You're not going to want to miss that. It's going to be a short little episode, but I think it'll be really great to kind of divide that up into something special that you're going to really enjoy. So that'll be coming up early next week, either Saturday, Sunday, or Monday. We also have Kevonte Martin-Manley, Iowa's all-time receptions leader in Iowa history. He's also joining our show. Had a great conversation with him yesterday. I'm going to record that podcast. We're going to be editing that and posting that early next week, so stay tuned for that. It was a great conversation talking to him about football, about life, and about the

two-star earn-the-fifth mentality that he embodies in his personal and his professional life. And then finally, as you may know by now, the NFL Draft is coming up very soon. It's two weeks away, and we have quite a few Hawkeyes who are going to be finding out where their NFL home is going to be, whether that's through the draft or undrafted free agency. So we're going to be putting together kind of a week-long special of NFL Draft episodes. I'm going to be doing some recording with Nick Kendell, a draft analyst over at Mile High Huddle and an avid Iowa Hawkeye fan. He joined the show a few months ago talking about some of the Iowa Hawkeyes before the Combine. And I'm also going to be joined by Sarah Bettinger,

a draft analyst for NFL Mocs on the Fan Sighted Network. They're going to be jumping on a show with me and we're going to be running through the Iowa Hawkeye draft prospects, talking about superlatives, talking about pro comps, projected teams, you name it, we're going to be running through the Iowa Hawkeye draft prospects, talking about superlatives, talking about pro comps, projected teams, you name it. We're going to discuss it. It's going to be fantastic, especially for all of you NFL draft junkies out there who want to know more about the Iowa Hawkeye prospects. So like I said, lots of stuff coming up on the show. For today's episode, we're going to be kind of touching on a few topics here and there. It's going to be, like I said, a pretty short episode.

kind of touching on a few topics here and there. It's going to be, like I said, a pretty short episode, not going to follow your typical segment one, segment two, segment three format that we usually typically follow. But on today's show, we're going to be talking about Noah Fant and TJ Hawkinson. They're going to actually be in Nashville for the draft. We're also going to be talking about the WNBA draft. Megan Gustafson was drafted by the Dallas Wings in the second round. And then we're going to be talking about Joe Wieskamp entering the NBA draft and what that means for the Iowa basketball program. So that being said, we're going to jump right into that in a few seconds, but we're going to give you a few seconds to listen to a few messages from our sponsors.

We are back after those messages from our sponsors, and I want to touch on Noah Fant and TJ Hawkinson who are going to be heading to the NFL Draft. And so for those who are not familiar, the NFL Draft is held every single year. It's a great opportunity for young men to find out where their future careers are going to be. And typically what they do is they bring in anywhere from 20 to 30, 35 players who are projected to go early in the draft, whether that's first or second round. Before this, before the last couple of years, they used to bring in only like five, six, seven players. They've expanded it, obviously.

And some players choose to actually go. Some people want to be in person. They get to walk across the stage, shake Roger Goodell's hand, put on that cap of their new NFL team, and kind of share that emotion with the world. Some players like to sit at their house and kind of hang out with family and friends and maybe have a cookout or barbecue or what have you and celebrate that way. Noah Fantigi-Hawkinson decided they are actually going to be at the NFL Draft. So I love that. I think it's going to be really fun to watch them on Thursday night when they go to the NFL Draft and honestly find out where they're going to be at for their future careers, where they're going

to start their NFL careers at. For Noah Fant, I think it's a little bit more interesting because he has been kind of projected all over the board. He's been projected in the teens all the way to the beginning of the second round. Personally, I cannot fathom the idea that he doesn't get drafted in the first round, but it is a possibility. But I just, unless there's a, you know, not a run on tight ends, like I kind of expect there to be, I think Fant will be drafted somewhere in the early to mid twenties. If he absolutely doesn't get drafted at that point, he'll be picked

up by the Packers at 30 or the Patriots at 32. For T.J. Hawkinson, it makes a little more sense. I mean, he's been projected anywhere from the seventh overall pick to the Jaguars, down to the Patriots at 32, and more consistently kind of in that 8-15 range, even projected to the Denver Broncos or the Lions. I mean, there's a lot of teams that could use his services as a pass-catching and run-blocking tight end. You know, he's very good at both, and I think that's kind of what makes him such a valuable commodity in the NFL Draft this year. So it'll be fun to watch both of those guys go to the NFL Draft. I'm excited. It's been a little bit of time since we've seen some of the Iowa Hawkeyes at the NFL

Draft. In fact, I can't remember the last time we had an Iowa Hawkeye actually attend the NFL Draft. So for those of you who know off the top of your head, feel free to tweet at me at LockedOnIowa or tweet at my personal account at Wade underscore Andrew or feel free to leave it in an iTunes review who was the last Iowa Hawkeye to actually go to the NFL draft and be there in person. In some other draft news, Megan Gustafson was selected in the 2019 WNBA draft by the Dallas Wings in the second round. I thought that was really interesting mostly because I totally

expected her to be drafted in the first round. There were multiple mock drafts that were put out, and they had her going anywhere from 10 to 12. So kind of in that range of some of those teams who were in the running for the WNBA championship, and a lot of them had her going to the Seattle Storm with that 12th pick in the first round. However, I watched the WNBA draft on ESPN2, and I never heard her name called in that first round. And I thought that was a little bit ridiculous.

There was quite a few forwards that were actually drafted ahead of her. Quite a few people that were drafted ahead of her that I felt like she had outperformed in games, including Kalani Brown at Baylor and Jessica Shepard of Notre Dame. They were both drafted ahead of her. In those games, Gustafson put up 23 points and 9 rebounds against Baylor. And against Jessica Shepard of Notre Dame, she put up 26 points and 9 rebounds against Baylor. And against Jessica Shepard of Notre Dame, she put up 26 points and 10 rebounds. I mean, the big knock on Gustafson coming into this thing was the fact that she's not as athletic and she's not tall enough to be a true center in the WNBA. So her size kind of makes her fit more of that power forward, that number four spot, but she doesn't

have that stretch ability to her game. So she's still going to be down low back to the basket. But some of these teams have some pretty tall centers. I feel like Gustafson could add a lot of value there as, you know, that four spot, even though she can't stretch the floor and shoot the three. I mean, she only shot two threes in her collegiate career. But I personally, you know, I'm a little pissed off about it. I think it's ridiculous that she did fall, you know, to the 17th pick of the second that she did fall to the 17th pick overall in the second round. And excuse me, that was 17th pick.

So to me, that's just a little bit ridiculous. I think it is a good opportunity for her, though. The Dallas Wings are actually going to be losing quite a few people, including their star center, Liz Cambage. She requested a trade earlier this year. They're also losing their star guard, Skylar Diggins-Smith to a pregnancy. So they have, you know, there's some room for 6'3 Gustafson to kind of come in and make some room for herself and get some immediate playing time. And I think that'll really benefit her as she gets adjusted to the WNBA game to be playing for a team that likely doesn't have championship aspirations yet. I think that'll give her an opportunity to kind of

settle in. Also being in Dallas, there's, you Hawks down there. There's Dirk Nowitzki, who I think Guston could kind of take some pointers from if he so pleases. There's a lot of opportunities there. And Dallas is a really great city that I think she's personally going to love. Obviously, coming from small Port Wayne, Wisconsin of 164 people to Iowa City, which is considered a big city in that regards, to Dallas. I think it's kind of a nice transition for her. I'm really excited. I've never really fully invested myself into watching the WNBA, but I'm definitely going

to be doing that here over the next couple of years as Megan Gustafson tears it up. And I fully expect her to. I hope she takes this as kind of a slight, you know, that she wasn't drafted until then because of those concerns and uses it as a motivation like she has in the past to be even better than she already is. So I'm excited to watch the WNBA and see how well she does with the Dallas Wings. But that'll do it, though, for that piece of our conversation on today's Locked on Hawkeyes podcast.

I'm going to take a quick break and give you a few more messages from our sponsor before we wrap up the show with talking about Joe Wieskamp's declaration for the NBA draft. All right, we are back with the final piece of our Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. As I said earlier, this is going to be a much shorter show. Mostly wanted to give you some of the, you know, keep you in the loop about all the fun things that we have coming up on this podcast. Again, if you have not subscribed to this podcast yet, please do so wherever you download this podcast at, whether that's Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, you name it,

please subscribe and like the podcast, leave us a review, let us know what you think. We are just getting started. We are 75 episodes in and we're starting to get some really great guests coming on the show. You know, like I said, to get some really great guests coming on the show. You know, like I said, Matthew Crawford, the general manager of the Iowa United. We had Deuce Hogan on Wednesday morning show, and we have Kevonte Martin-Manley coming on a next week show, and some draft analysts coming on the week after. So lots of great stuff coming up on the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. But the last thing I want to cover, though, for today, like I said, is Joe Wieskamp's declaration for the NBA draft. I want to caution people to not look too much into this. It makes sense

for him. He's a four-star recruit, did a fantastic job this season starting every game that he wasn't injured for the Iowa basketball team, and going into the NBA draft is not as permanent as the NFL draft, right? So as far as the NBA draft goes, you go in, if you don't sign an agent, you can come back to college. It's really just a really good opportunity to get some feedback. Consider it like a mock interview. That's essentially what it is. Joby's camp's going to go. He's going to work out for NBA scouts. They're going to give him some feedback on some things that he can improve in his game. And that'll give him an opportunity to work on some stuff over the summer. And you know, he's going to work hard on that before he comes into next year's basketball season as a sophomore. So I think it's a fantastic opportunity for him. It sounds like Luka Garza is not going to be doing that, and if you remember,

Isaiah Moss did actually do that last year, you know, came back this year. We'll see if he does it again to get some of that feedback, but it's really a win-win opportunity. I don't foresee Joey's camp going, and it sounds like he has every intent to coming back to the Iowa Hawkeyes next season. So don't worry, Iowa Hawkeye fans. We still have at least one more year of Joe Weiskamp playing awesome basketball for the Iowa Hawkeyes. But like I said, it's going to be a short episode today, and that'll do it for our Friday morning episode. My apologies if you were looking forward to a 20 to 25 minute episode. We will have plenty of those coming up very shortly. Again, if you have not checked out our previous podcast,

check out the one from Sunday with Matthew Crawford from the Iowa United and his creation of a team that's going to be competing for that $2 million winner-take-all tournament prize. Also on Wednesday, we had Deuce Hogan, the four-star quarterback from Texas, who has committed to the Iowa Hawkeyes. We had him on and talked to him a little bit about his recruitment process, what he expects to do as an Iowa Hawkeye quarterback, and so on and so forth. And then coming up, we have the all-time receptions leader in Iowa Hawkeye history, Kevontae Martin-Manley, coming on to talk about his playing career, his life,

and what the two-star earn-the-fifth mentality means to him, which is kind of his brand. And we also have Matthew Crawford joining us again to talk to us about the creation of the Iowa United team now that we have the full roster released, and also give us a very fantastic announcement for all of you Iowa Hawkeye fans out there. So stay tuned for some of the great things we have coming up shortly in the next week or two weeks. Also, again, if you have not subscribed to our podcast, please do on iTunes, Stitcher, or Spotify.

If you have not followed us on Twitter, please do so as well. It is Locked on Iowa. We're going to be doing some great giveaways, and I'll be making some more announcements about that in the coming couple days, but some great giveaways for some autographed pictures from former Hawkeye football players, so stay tuned for that. And again, if you have not used a smart speaker to listen to the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast, give it a try one night. Just say, hey Google, Siri, or Alexa, play podcast Locked on Hawkeyes.

It is that easy to listen to the most recent episode of the Locked on Hawkeyes podcast. Again, have a fantastic Friday. We'll be back with tons of great content coming up to you later this weekend and early next week. Have a fantastic weekend, Hawkeye Nation. We'll see you next time.