The Iowa Hawkeyes‘ 2023-24 men’s college basketball season officially gets underway Tuesday night from inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena as Iowa welcomes the North Dakota Fighting Hawks.
Last season, Iowa earned its fourth consecutive NCAA Tournament berth and finished 19-14 (11-9 Big Ten). Iowa is one of three Big Ten programs (Michigan State and Purdue) and one of 10 programs nationally that can say they have advanced to each of the past four NCAA Tournaments.
While Iowa returns several key faces, the Hawkeyes are replacing their top two scorers and rebounders from last season: forwards Kris Murray and Filip Rebraca.
That means senior guard Tony Perkins, junior forward Payton Sandfort and redshirt senior forward Patrick McCaffery are the presumptive favorites to be this team’s consistent leaders. Each of those three have been double-figure scorers one season throughout their careers.
Perkins averaged a career-high 12.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 2.8 assists per game last season. Sandfort similarly delivered career bests of 10.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game in 2022-23, while shooting 34.3% from 3-point distance. McCaffery averaged 9.8 points per game and netted 34.7% of his 3-point tries last season for the Hawkeyes.
Iowa brought in transfer portal additions Ben Krikke from Valparaiso and Even Brauns from Belmont to help inside.
Krikke, a 6-foot-9 graduate student forward, averaged a Missouri Valley Conference-best 19.4 points per game last year. He also reeled in 5.9 rebounds and 2.1 assists per night, while shooting 55.2% from the floor. Meanwhile, Brauns averaged 7 points and 5.3 rebounds per game on 58.3% shooting last season with Belmont.
Sophomore guards Dasonte Bowen and Josh Dix figure to be heavy rotation players as will the Hawkeyes’ freshmen signees Brock Harding, Pryce Sandfort, Ladji Dembele and Owen Freeman.
Iowa won its exhibition contest against Quincy on Oct. 30, 103-76. Seven Hawkeyes finished with double-figure scoring. McCaffery led the way with 16 points, but Krikke, Perkins, both Sandforts, Dix and Freeman each finished with 10 or more points.
Iowa head men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery shared with reporters on Sunday what he would like to see his team improve upon from the exhibition and closed scrimmages to this evening’s contest against North Dakota.
“The only thing you ever really want to see is you just want to see improvement. That’s both individually and collectively. Most of our guys have played pretty well.
“Maybe some of them didn’t shoot as well, have as good of a game. You want them to be better. We got outrebounded in the scrimmage. We had 14 3s in the last game. Those kind of things you want to see improvement on. You have to play better defense than that,” McCaffery said.
It all gets underway tonight in an exclusively streamed game this evening. How can Iowa fans watch, listen and follow tonight’s action? All of the information fans need is below.