Hawkeyes Basketball: Iowa Lands Two Big Recruits

Iowa Hawkeyes basketball has added two huge recruits this weekend

With the start of football season, everyone has paid attention to the Iowa Hawkeyes on the football field and pushed basketball to the back of their minds. It makes sense as Iowa has gotten off to a fast start with two blowout wins, however Iowa also made a mark on the recruiting trail in basketball this weekend.

The Hawkeyes picked up two big recruits for their 2017 class. Iowa already landed head coach Fran McCaffery‘s son, a shooting guard ranked as the 84th best recruit, according to ESPN. Even with Connor McCaffery coming in, it still left a lot of questions in the Hawkeyes front court moving forward, even with ESPN 100 Class of 2016 recruit Tyler Cook.

The Hawkeyes will have more options than they’ve had in their front court over recent years very soon, though. On Saturday night, Luka Garza committed to the Hawkeyes. ESPN rated him just outside their top 100 recruits, as he earned a grade of 82, just one lower than Connor McCaffery.

Garza is a Washington, DC native and 247Sports ranks him as the 17th best center in the nation, 164th overall. He’s a skilled 6-11 center who can space the floor and can also finish inside. With Adam Woodbury graduated, he’ll add much-needed size to the Hawkeyes in 2017.

He also had offers from Indiana, Louisville, Notre Dame, Northwestern, Penn State, Nebraska and others. No doubt a huge get for McCaffery over very stiff competition for the talented big man.

The Hawkeyes added even more size on Sunday night when 6-9 power forward Jack Nunge committed to the Hawkeyes. Nunge is an Indiana native and had offers from Creighton, Clemson, Nebraska and many other Division-I schools. He’s going to need to bulk up some to reach his full potential with the Hawkeyes, however he’s a skilled big man with plenty of upside.

Both recruits may be outside the top-100 on most recruiting rankings, but both were huge gets for Fran McCaffery. With four starters graduated from last year’s team, and Peter Jok a senior this year, there is huge turnover happening for Iowa’s basketball program right now. Tyler Cook was one of the biggest recruits in McCaffery’s career, and McCaffery followed it up with what’s shaping to be another really good class in 2017.

Iowa may lack size this year, however they’ve so far added a 6-6 guard/forward, a 6-9 forward and a 6-11 center for 2017. No one expected this big of a weekend for Hawkeyes basketball in the middle of September, but it happened and the Hawkeyes future is looking very bright.

You can follow Luka Garza and Jack Nunge on Twitter @LukaG_55 and @jnunge30.