Locked On Hawkeyes - Daily Podcast On Iowa Hawkeyes Football & Basketball - LUKA GARZA IS BACK! | Possible lineup combinations | Expectations for this basketball season

Episode Date: August 4, 2020

All-American center Luka Garza has announced his return to the Iowa basketball team for this upcoming season, which means we are devoting an entire episode to the Iowa basketball team. What does Luka's decision mean for the program? What are the possible lineup combinations? And what are the expectations for this year's squad?Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors! Rock AutoAmazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. Visit RockAuto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I thank God I was born on the good arms of the Midwest, and not on the battlefields of the U.S. It's a time of panic, and it's intercepted! It's picked off right away! Intercepted by Marty Hooker! Pick six! Eight seconds into the game! Buffen sets up deep in the pocket, goes down the field for Smith!

Oh! He's got it! Smith! Touchdown. 85 yards. High on. Touchdown, 10. Taking a shot in the end zone.

It is caught. No offense. Touchdown. That's either one or you have it. Go ahead and three. Yes. Two-point lead for the Hawkeye Nation, and welcome back to another episode of the Locked On Hawkeyes podcast, your daily podcast covering your Iowa Hawkeyes on the Locked On Sports Network.

As always, I am your host, Andrew Wade. Excited to be back for another episode of the show, and especially excited to be back for this episode because we have some great stuff to talk about today. Today's episode, though, is brought to you by the great folks at rockauto.com. Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. Visit rockauto.com and tell them Locked On sent you. And unless you've been living under a rock, you are now aware that Luka Garza is returning. And boy, that was exciting. I was waiting on pins and needles on Sunday for that announcement.

Obviously joined the YouTube live stream of what was going on, trying to get a sense for if he was going to do it, if he was going to return, if he was going to go pro. And we talked about it on Friday, you know, kind of out in a way in the options. And to be honest, I felt like there was a good chance he left. There was just, there's so much uncertainty with the college basketball season. You just don't know what to expect. So anyways, Luka Garza returned. So on today's episode, we're going to be talking all about the basketball team. You know, we're going to talk about some football stuff, but I just felt like we should dedicate this episode to the fact that Luka Garza is returning, the fact that this lineup is going to be deadly, talk a little bit about the

decisions that, or what went into the decisions, kind of what led up to Sunday's announcement, and talk about all the bitter fans across the Big Ten that are for some reason hating on Iowa right now because Luka Garza returned. So we're going to be covering all that on today's episode of the show. Before we do that though, make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast app. Give us that five-star review and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We have shows coming out three times a week. We'll be daily once college sports gets back up. And on this week's episodes, we do have 2021 commit Griffin Little defensive tackle out of Bettendorf, Iowa. He's going to be joining the show. We also might be dropping a special interview with one of the current Iowa Hawkeyes parents, who's going to be talking a bit about

his experience kind of going through that recruiting process with his son and whatnot. So I'm really excited about the episodes we have coming out this week. But like I said, let's hop into the Luka Garza stuff. Let's start with kind of the buildup to it. So on Friday, we talked a bit about what the decisions were, kind of what the things he should be weighing is kind of going on. The fact that he has deals offered to him overseas in Europe, is not easy to turn down he you know did get invited to the NBA combine but what was that going to look like the combine was you know going

to be after the fact that he couldn't was going to be after the part where he could actually come back if he wanted to so who knows how he was going to do there but it did seem like he was pretty confident he was going to be drafted at least in the second round of the NBA draft. And to turn that down can be very difficult, especially when we don't know if there's going to be a college basketball season. Who knows at this point? Honestly, I'm worried there's going to be no sports for a while. And despite that uncertainty, Luka Garza came back.

And honestly, I just think that speaks volumes to his character. And to be fair, if he decided to go, I would not be upset. I totally understand. But the fact that he did decide to come back and why he decided to come back, to me, just speaks volumes to the kind of guy Luka Garza is. This is a guy who was a first-team All-American, Big Ten Player of the Year, set a single-season record for points with 740 points, and still came back this year.

And him coming back just means this Big Ten conference is going to be wild this year. Lots of big-name players came back this year, and we're going to talk about that later on in the show. But it's not like he came back because he had a mission he wanted to finish this thing out with the Iowa Hawkeyes he loves Fran McCaffrey he feels like you know he would be missing out if he wasn't able to be here for this season he even mentioned you know the fact that if he didn't return and there was a season and he saw his you know some of his

best friends playing basketball he would have regretted being gone. And he now knows that there's, you know, there's no regret. He is not going to regret returning at any point. It does sound like one of the things he was kind of weighing, you know, took him a little bit, but he decided on Wednesday, it sounded like him and his dad had a great conversation. They made the decision there, or he made the decision based off his conversation with his dad, woke up the next day, the next morning and felt

very confident in what he was doing. So at that point, the decision was made. He was going to be returning to the University of Iowa. Sounds like he did announce that to his teammates later on in the week as well, let them know that he was going to be returning. And then that's when the trolling came out a little bit on the Iowa Hawkeye side we had Frank Garza posting some cryptic tweets about you know whether or not he was coming back was you know going to be there whatnot and then we had Connor McCaffrey who people were a little upset at I'll be honest I was like I thought Connor McCaffrey had blown what Luka Garza's decision was and the fact that he said respect his decision whatever it may be let me actually find it specifically um tough to find now because he

has a ton of retweets of Luka Garza returning but basically Conor said respect whatever the decision is no matter what that decision is kind of hinting at the fact that Luka Garza might be leaving the Iowa Hawkeyes. Ultimately, Luka Garza did not leave the Iowa Hawkeyes. And it turns out that Luka actually encouraged Connor to tweet that out. He encouraged Connor to troll Hawkeye Nation and get us a little worried. And now kind of looking back, you know, it's almost surprising we didn't see some of these pieces come together. The fact that Luka was going to be doing the announcement through the University of Iowa on the University of Iowa YouTube channel, that should have been a flag right there that he was probably returning.

How many players decide that they are going to be, you know, leaving their school to go to the NBA and do it through the school? You know, there are players that do, but it's not as often that that happens. The fact that he did decide to do that, love the fact that he did do some of the trolling. He made the decision early. He is returning to the Iowa Hawkeyes, and he's ready to compete for a national championship.

He said this is not about his individual accolades. This has nothing to do with his individual statistics. He wants to bring Iowa to a Final Four, and he wants to bring Iowa a national championship. And a lot of experts would argue that that is a very real possibility of that happening. Iowa has a long way to go, but they have quite an impressive team that they are putting together this upcoming season. So coming up on segment number two, we're going to talk about what the roster looks like, what some projected lineups could be, and just how incredible this team could

be coming into the year 2020-2021 season, depending on if we do have that. So excited to bring that up on segment number two. Before we jump into that though, I do have a message from you or for you from our sponsors. With the ever- the ever increasing number of makes and models it is now impossible to stock all the parts you need in a traditional chain storefront why endure often pointless or seemingly intimidating questioning and wait while the counterman orders the parts on his computer choosing only the brand that his warehouse happens to carry they're limited by what they have in their store so it makes sense now, you don't need to go into the brick and mortar shop, go to rockauto.com and you can do that from your home. Rockauto.com is a family business. It serves auto part customers online for 20 years. Go to rockauto.com to shop for auto

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So they know we sent you. Amazing selection. Reliably low prices. All the parts your car will ever need. rockauto.com We are back for segment number two. We're going to be breaking down the possible lineup combinations. I mean, this team is absolutely loaded. How many teams return not only, I would say, five starters,

but arguably seven to eight starters. And I mentioned that to a friend the other day, because Frank McCaffrey even made a note that this was, you know, the most starters he's ever returned, the most, you know, veteran players he's ever returned. and he's not wrong. Not a lot of teams return five starters. Not a lot of teams, if ever, return seven. And people wonder, how is that even possible? How do you return seven starters? Well, people, I think, are easy, you know, quickly to forget the fact that last year's starting lineup was, it was Jordan Bohannon, CJ Frederick,

Joe Wieskamp, Patrick Nunji, and Luka Garza. Nunj and Bohannon both went out. Nunj tore his ACL. Bohannon obviously was never going to play more than those 10 games. That quickly reduced that lineup pretty quick. In their place, it was kind of a mixed bag of who started for Iowa, but you have to factor in the fact that we saw Joe Toussaint get a lot of playing time. Connor McCaffrey was a starter last year. They,

he started a significant amount of games last year for the Hawks starting 31. Ryan Greener started six. Joe Toussaint started 20. They only lost Ryanreener from that team and McCarty Evelyn. So you lost arguably two of your top seven scores from last year. Let me confirm that. Actually, no, they lost. I mean, technically, if you count Jordan Bohannon and Jack in that, you lost two of your top nine scores. But really, you're not losing any starters. And in fact, you're returning even more starters.

And that doesn't factor into the fact that Patrick McCaffrey only played two games in 27 minutes in the season before having to kind of basically bow out with aftermath effects of his cancer treatment. He looks like he has put on some weight this year, is ready to play in that Big Ten season. Obviously losing Cordell Pemzel, another loss, but not as big. And I think really where he was kind of slotted at in this Iowa basketball team wasn't going to make a lot of sense. Iowa squad is now built around Luka Garza down low and shooters surrounding him. And I'm really excited to see what this lineup looks like.

Bray McCaffrey has a ton of options at his disposal. And I'll be honest though, one of the things I thought was really impressive about the team last year was the fact that not only did Fran McCaffrey coach this team up, I thought this team performed better than what they kind of looked like on paper. But I think a big part of that was the fact that there wasn't a big bench. Fran McCaffrey did not have to really worry about balancing a bench. He basically had to ride the hell out of his starters. He had to ride the heck out of them and occasionally play a few other guys. You saw guys like Austin Ash and Riley Till.

Riley played 91 minutes, got a few minutes being a first-year scholarship player. Austin Ash got 24 minutes. Michael Bayer got 15. Nicholas Hobbs,ico hobbs got 14 but after that not a lot of minutes all around um we's camp got a thousand luca garza got 991 frederick being injured a little bit got 717 and then connor mccaffrey at 933 after that the next closest was ryan kreiner or sorry bakari evelyn at 567. So they basically rode a few guys a lot. This year, though, they have a deep bench.

I'm thinking the starting lineup at this point is going to look like Jordan Bohannon at the point, Connor McCaffrey. Actually, no, sorry, CJ Frederick at the two, Joe Wieskamp at the three, or Connor McCaffrey at the three and Joe Wieskamp at the four, and then Luka Garz at the five. While that might not make a ton of sense, I mean, because McCaffrey and Wieskamp really are more suited to be ones or twos. McCaffrey, I think, is arguably the best pure point guard

from a distribution standpoint. You know, led the nation in assists to turnover ratio last year. Just super smart with the ball. But he also, what people don't realize, he can guard really four positions, especially in the Big Ten. Obviously, there's going to be nights where we're going to be playing a team with two big men.

I think Wisconsin is a great example of that, where we might be playing Jack Nunji as that four with a Luka Garza, that five, a little bit more. But I think Connor McCaffrey and Joe Wieskamp, they have the size to be able to play and defend multiple positions. And CJ Frederick I mean he's six foot three but he he's a great defender a great on-ball defender so I think defensively Iowa could also put together one of the best defensive teams and they have the ability as

well to really contribute on the defensive side of the floor because they don't need to play all all the minutes every single game because now behind those guys you have a second string team coming out that features Joe Toussaint arguably the Tyler Goodson of the basketball team the most athletic guy Iowa has had at that guard spot and gosh I can't remember the last time they had someone that athletic there Patrick McCaffrey a top 100 recruit a guy who can truly defend all four positions, can also run the court with the ball in his hand, can shoot a little bit from outside, not as, you know, want to see that grow a little bit more. Jack Nunji, a guy who was going to start

last year and has put on some weight and really developed as a player. I mean, he's coming into, I believe, his fourth year in the program, which is pretty darn impressive, all things considered. So he's a guy to watch out for as well. Started 14 games as a true freshman, played 15.7 minutes per game, and averaged 5.7 points with 2.8 rebounds. So I'm excited to see what he can do this year as well. We're not even factoring in the fact that Iowa has a pretty good recruiting class. You look at this Iowa Hawkeye recruiting class, and it is deceptively good. And by that, I mean people weren't expecting much from this class. But, man, look at this class, and you'll be impressed.

I think Tony Perkins, he's a guy we actually had on the show early on in his recruitment process. He's a guy who I think could probably play right away at that shooting guard perspective or that shooting guard spot. An explosive guy, 6'4", 185 pounds. He's a guy that I think with Joe Toussaint, he could be a dynamic duo in the backcourt if they come in together, especially if Iowa goes with that small ball lineup of playing essentially two point guards and two shooting guards in their top four spots that leaves a nice spot for Tony Perkins to come in as well

as well Aaron Ullis another guy who's been rising up the rankings he's also playing that point guard spot six foot 285 pounds both those guys I think could see playing time this year and then there's not a lot of backcourt depth either so you have josh ogundelli who i think could be spelling you know uh luke garza in limited minutes maybe five ten minutes a game um six foot ten 240 pound guy we had him on the show probably about a month and a half two months ago the dude is a beast he can all shoot the ball from you know from behind the three-point arc i think i think the sky's the limit for that kid uh just an absolute stud. And hasn't been playing basketball all that long. Started out, I believe, as a rugby player, if I remember correctly, before moving into basketball.

And then let's not forget about the Murray twins. These two kids, Fran offered them a scholarship. They were unranked. They were doing a prep year down in Florida at DME Academy. Their dad played at Iowa. Both 6'8". Both can shoot the ball. I actually think these guys are underrated. They've risen up the rankings quite a bit. They are now ranked the 324th and 325th prospects in the nation. These are guys, though, that could also play. I think

their path to playing time might be slightly limited simply because there is kind of a gluttony of that 6' six to six foot ten kind of role at the Iowa basketball team obviously with Joey's camp Connor McCaffrey Patrick McCaffrey Jack Nunji and Luka Garza you know if maybe if they go super small I think there's an opportunity there but the guys that Iowa has coming in just gives Fran so much potential and it really gives him an opportunity to run the offense he wants to run and I think if Iowa can even just be a top 50 defensive team we could be seeing just arguably the best team we've ever seen from an Iowa basketball perspective but I want to get into that on a segment number three so on segment number three we're going to be breaking down

kind of what the expectations are for this Iowa basketball team and whether or not that's a realistic expectation to have and what is the goal here what would be a worst or not that's a realistic expectation to have. And what is the goal here? What would be a worst case scenario? That's all going to be coming up on segment number three. We're also going to be quickly breaking down a few minor hot topics that did come out that I want to make sure we touch on on the show today. So that'll be coming up in just a few short seconds. We are back for segment number three of the lockdown Hawkeyes podcast like I said going to be talking about the expectations for this Iowa basketball team but also want to make

sure I got in a few of the the news and notes that have happened over the last couple days today it sounds like the Big Ten is expected to release their 2020 football schedule so we'll have a little bit more information that we can cover on tomorrow's episode about that. We also have some really big news coming out of the Minnesota front. Rashad Bateman has decided to actually prepare for the NFL draft and not play this college football season. That is huge.

Minnesota is a good team. They're a team that I was a bit worried about. But Rashad Bateman is, you know, he's gone. And that is huge from an Iowa perspective, especially considering they play Minnesota to kind of open up that season. They don't have to go against one of the best wide receivers that are returning in the country. So glad to hear that. Wish him the best. Obviously going to be a great player. So really excited to see kind of what he does at the next level. But very happy that he's not going to be playing against Iowa this year.

Also, as I mentioned, quite a few guys have returned to their respective basketball programs, and that was unexpected to say the least. Both Illinois players have returned. Ayo DeSamu, I messed messed up that name don't care at this point Kofi Koprin he has returned as well Xavier Tillman also returned or sorry Xavier Tillman left and Aaron Henry returned for Michigan State Wisconsin no one's going away Isaiah Livers he is returning back to Michigan and they have a few guys transferring in from Columbia and Wake Forest I mean you look across board, not a lot of guys actually left.

I thought we would see a few more guys be on their way, but it's really looking like Jalen Smith for the most part. Out of Maryland, we have Minnesota's Daniel Otoro. He's probably gone as well. Outside of that, though, the Big Ten has come back, and they're coming back strong this year. It is going to be a tough Big Ten conference. What does this mean, though, for the Iowa basketball team?

The sky's the limit, though. It's Big Ten championship or bust. I mean, if this team doesn't win a Big Ten title, I think a lot of people will look at this as a disappointment. The pressure is on now. Last year, given all the injuries, there was no pressure on Iowa to be good I mean obviously fans wanted them to be good but they play with the chip on their shoulder they were the underdogs they did a great job of you know being resilient throughout the year this year though they have a target on their back

they are going to be ranked top five to begin this year looking at all the new top 25 polls that have come out the last you know 24 hours since Luka Garza has returned, Iowa is consistently in that top 25. And I'm sorry, that top five, not even top 25. When you have your team in the top five, you're going to start getting some hate on you, and people are going to want to come at you. And I think that is going to be an interesting situation that Iowa has not been in for quite a few, you know, some hate on you and people are going to want to come at you. And I think that is going to be an interesting situation that Iowa has not, has not been in for quite a few years. So how does that look? How does Iowa play? And then also keep in mind the

fact that while Iowa is in the top five, that doesn't mean squat in the grand scheme of things. They still have to go out there and play the game. And I have no doubt, you know, this team is fiery. This team is built to win. This team is resilient. I have no doubt that they're going to come out ready to play. They're not going to need to have any extra motivation. They're going to want to prove to people that they belong there. But making a Final Four is no easy task. Look at all the number one teams that haven't made the Final Four. That's why the NCAA bracket and the NCAA tournament is so much fun to watch because you don't know what is going to happen. Anything can happen any given day. However, I think for Iowa fans, if they don't make a final four, it is considered a disappointment. However, I'll go, I'll go a step back though.

I think making a sweet 16 would be huge. I think that would be, that'd be awesome. Obviously I want to see Iowa go as far as possible, but a sweet 16 would be huge and a lead eight, I think would be kind of a soft spot where no one's really getting mad or upset about Iowa losing. But people are still disappointed. But the final four national championship, that's the kind of expectations we have this year with Luka Garz returning, arguably the best three-point shooter last year, CJ Frederick, the best three-point shooter in the history of Iowa basketball, Jordan Bohannon returning, one of the most intelligent players on the court at any given time, Connor McCaffrey. And then another NBA prospect in Joe Wieskamp.

I mean, this team is locked and this team is loaded. And I'm very excited to watch Iowa basketball this summer, or sorry, this winter. Hopefully we do get Iowa basketball. I saw some tweets from people saying maybe Iowa will actually start wearing masks so we can get some basketball back. Again, please, if you're out there, please be safe. I know it might not be the most comfortable thing, but the only way we're going to be able to get a full slate of college sports

is if we do have that happen. People are taking this seriously, and we can get Iowa basketball back, and that will be a lot of fun this year. So that being said, I wanted to break down all the Luka Garza news. We'll be covering the schedule release tomorrow as well, so be in the lookout for that. Again, I appreciate you all tuning in to today's episode of the Lockdown Hawkeyes podcast. If you liked what you heard today, please make sure to like, review, and subscribe wherever you downloaded this podcast at.

Give us that five-star review, and make sure to tune in later this week for our interview with griffin little the defensive tackle out of bet north iowa a class of 2021 commit and again apologies for not getting this episode out yesterday it was my birthday and i decided to take a day off and not record an episode so apologies there as well but i hope you did enjoy today's analysis of luca garza returning and what that means for the iowa basketball team what thatuka Garza returning and what that means for the Iowa basketball team, what that means for a lineup, and what that means from an expectation standpoint. Again, this team is coming in with more expectations

than they've ever had before in this team's history under Fran McCaffrey. Maybe save for the final year with Jared Uthoff where they rose up in the rankings pretty high, but even then the expectations were not as high coming into that season. So this team has a bullseye on their back. They need to be able to turn up and turn in a great performance. So I'm excited to see it though. I think this team can do it. Let me know your thoughts as well, though. And again, thank you all for tuning into today's episode. I hope you all had a great weekend and as always, let's go Hawks. We'll see you next time.