By Tyler Devine

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Two of three players committed to the Iowa basketball team's 2017 recruiting class will be officially locked in as of Thursday.

Three-star forward Luka Garza, a native of Washington D.C., signed his letter of intent with Iowa on Wednesday morning, while fellow three-star forward Jack Nunge, a native of Newburgh, Ind., is set to sign his letter of intent Thursday afternoon.

Wednesday marked the first day of the early signing period for high school seniors who intend to play college basketball.

Iowa also has a third player committed to the 2017 class with a familiar last name. However, Connor McCaffery, the son of Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery, won't sign a letter of intent during the early signing period because there aren't any scholarships currently available in the 2017 class beyond the two given to Garza and Nunge.

The 6-foot-5 Connor McCaffery also wants to play baseball at Iowa and might use a baseball scholarship or he might walk-on the basketball team in order to make another scholarship available in basketball.

"Well, baseball is a big part of his thought process, no question about that," Fran McCaffery said. "And it should be and it's hard, because not a lot of guys do it, especially with position players. It happens a lot more with pitchers only. So you have that component. You have the scholarship component. You have the baseball component. It's a lot of moving parts with him.

"But he's not in any rush."

Connor McCaffery also has discussed applying for an academic scholarship, which would allow him to play both sports and give his father another scholarship.

Fran McCaffery told reporters on Wednesday that it was tough trying to recruit his son, who is senior at Iowa City West High School.

"I think when you look at the entire picture, it's a positive," Fran McCaffery said. "But it is stressful in the sense that you want everything to work for him. We just talked about what Luka's experience was like. It wasn't like that for Connor. So having been doing this for as long as I have, you kind of want Connor to be able to look at other places and look around. Is this where I want to go to school? Is this who I want to play for? Is this the style of play for me? Do they meet the academic criteria that I laid out for myself. Do they need me?

"The timing of recruiting is often critical, so he's not really had that opportunity. So it makes it fun and exciting. But at the same time, a little different. I think in the end it will all work out."

"He really likes his teammates at Iowa City West. He likes his coaches. He's trying to figure out do I need to pick or do I need to continue to play both. Can I play both? Is it feasible or am I going to suffer in each as I move forward, and that's not an easy decision. It's not like anybody in this room or his parents can say, this is the right way to go. You talk to experts in the field and everybody will say it can be done. Just everybody will say it's going to be hard and it's going to be harder for a position player."