By Tyler Devine

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa men’s basketball team received its first verbal commitment in the 2021 recruiting class Thursday when three-star forward Payton Sandfort announced his commitment to the Hawkeyes via Twitter.

All the glory to God! pic.twitter.com/BuwvGBGra7

— Payton Sandfort (@payton_20_) October 2, 2020

Sandfort, a native of Waukee, chose Iowa over scholarship offers from Air Force, Drake, Loyola (IL), Minnesota, Stanford and Utah.

Iowa was the first school to extend a scholarship offer to the 6-foot-7, 210-pound Sandfort in June 2019.

Sandfort was able to make multiple visits to Iowa City before the COVID-19 pandemic caused the NCAA to implement an extended recruiting dead period that prohibits in-person contact between recruits and coaches.

Sandfort told HawkFanatic.com over the summer that he was keeping in close contact with Iowa and other schools mostly via Zoom and phone calls.

Sandfort isn’t the only player from his Waukee High School team to receive Division I interest.

His teammates, four-star 2021 forward Tucker DeVries and 2023 forward Omaha Biliew, also have high major scholarship offers.

DeVries, who is the son of Drake head coach Darian DeVries, sports scholarship offers from Drake, Florida and Iowa State.

Biliew has offers from Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa and Michigan.