IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa men’s basketball team has received a verbal commitment from the leading scorer in the Missouri Valley Conference this past season.

Ben Krikke, a 6-foot-9, 230-pound forward from Valparaiso, announced his commitment to Iowa Monday on Instagram.

Krikke led the Missouri Valley Conference in scoring this past season at 19.4 points per game, and 21.0 in league play. He also averaged 5.9 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 0.9 blocked shots for the 11-21 Crusaders.

Krikke shot a league-best 55.2 percent from the field, but he struggled from 3-point range where he shot just 27.9 percent (17-of-61). He is also a career 80.7 percent free throw-shooter.

Krikke started all 32 games for Valparaiso last season, and he has 90 career starts.

He was an All-MVC first-team selection this season and he made third-team All-MVC in the previous two seasons.

Krikke scored 1,507 points and grabbed 505 rebounds over four seasons at Valparaiso.

He will have one season of eligibility at Iowa.

Krikke visited the Iowa campus this past weekend.

He will now join an Iowa team that has led the Big Ten in scoring in each of the past five seasons under head coach Fran McCaffery.

The addition of Krikke will help fill the void left by departing senior Filip Rebraca, who started at power forward for the Hawkeyes in each of the past two seasons.

Rebraca also came to Iowa via the transfer portal after having played his first three seasons at North Dakota.

Iowa also has to replace junior forward and leading scorer Kris Murray, who recently announced that he would skip his senior season to enter the 2023 NBA draft.

Fran McCaffery doesn’t normally rely heavily on the transfer portal to fill spots, but the loss of Rebraca and Kris Murray, and the loss of junior center Josh Ogundele to the transfer portal has created a big hole inside.

Bradley forward Rienk Mast is also on Iowa’s radar and he recently visited the UI campus.

Mast averaged 13.8 points and 8.0 rebounds per game this past season.

The 6-9, 240-pound Mast is a native of the Netherlands.

He shot 51.8 percent from the field and 35.3 perecent from 3-point range this past season.