Fran McCaffery has built intriguing roster for 2024-25 season
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa men’s basketball team is ranked 11th in the Big Ten preseason media poll.
It sounds worse than what it is with 18 teams now in the conference.
There didn’t used to be an 11th place in the Big Ten because there were just 10 teams in the conference as crazy as that might sound.
Now 11th place is just below the middle of the pack.
Certainly not good, but also not bad.
That’s how the media apparently sees the 2024-25 Iowa men’s basketball team, and fair enough with Iowa having lost three key players from last season’s team that didn’t make the NCAA Tournament.
Myself personally, I think this team will do better than 11th place.
This Iowa team is intriguing with its blend of youth and experience, and with what Fran McCaffery has added from the transfer portal in guard Drew Thelwell and forward Seydou Traore.
And is there a better threesome in the Big Ten than senior guard Payton Sandfort, sophomore forward Owen Freeman and junior guard Josh Dix because it’s hard to think of one?
“Really excited about this team on a number of different levels,” Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said to the Big Ten Network. “Most importantly, I think our depth.”
This Iowa team has strong representation in each of the four classes, though it is actually five with Thelwell being a graduate student.
The senior class has Payton Sandfort and forward Even Brauns.
The junior class has Josh Dix, center Riley Mulvey and guard Carter Kingsbury, who was recently put on scholarship for the 2024-25 season.
The sophomore class has in addition to Freeman and Traore, point guard Brock Harding and forwards Ladji Dembele and Pryce Sandfort, while the freshman class has forwards Cooper Koch and Chris Tadjo.
Payton Sandfort tested the NBA draft process after a junior season in which the 6-foot-7 Waukee native led Iowa in scoring. He also became the first player in program history to record a triple-double as he scored 26 points and had 10 rebounds and 10 assists in a win over Penn State.
Payton Sandfort is a prolific 3-point shooter, and though he can be streaky at times, he was more consistent last season.
The 6-10 Freeman was named Big Ten Co-Freshman of the Year last season, and deservedly so, since he started 25 games, averaged 10.6 points, 6.6 rebounds, 1.8 blocks, 1.2 assists and 0.9 steals in 22.9 minutes per game.
He also shot 61.4 percent (145-of-236) from the floor.
The 6-4 Dix appeared in 34 games last season with 20 starts. He averaged 8.9 points, 2.2 rebounds and 1.7 assists, and shot 55.2 percent (117-of-212) from the floor, 42.1 percent (32-of-76) from 3-point range and 86 percent (37-of-43) from the free throw line. He also had 19 steals and a 2.5 assist-to-turnover ratio.
“He’s one of the best players in our league,” Fran McCaffery said of Dix, who is from Council Bluffs.
As for the two additions from the transfer portal, the 6-4 Thelwell, who played four seasons for Morehead State before transferring to Iowa, is the all-time winningest player in Morehead State history, winning 94 games in his four-year career. He helped the Eagles to two Ohio Valley Conference regular season titles, two OVC Tournament titles and three postseason appearances (two NCAAs, one NIT).
He also started all 68 games during junior and senior seasons, averaging 10 points, 6.2 assists and 1.3 steals as a senior for a team that went 26-9, shared the OVC regular season title and won the OVC Tournament to earn an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.
The 6-7 Traore played his freshman season for Manhattan where he was an All-Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Rookie Team honoree.
He started 27 games and averaged 11.9 points and 8.2 rebounds per game, to go along with 62 assists and 34 blocks.
Traore was also the only player in the MAAC with 300-plus points, 200-plus rebounds, 60-plus assists, 40-plus steals and 30-plus blocks. His 1.3 blocks per game led the league.
Traore and Thelwell were both looking for a bigger stage, and for a chance to play against better competition, and they found it at Iowa.
To say this team is intriguing isn’t to suggest that it will win or even compete for the Big Ten regular-season, which Iowa hasn’t won since the 1978-79 season.
It’s just hard to find 10 other Big Ten teams that clearly look better than Iowa on paper.
For the first time in six years, Fran McCaffery won’t have a son on the team with Patrick McCaffery having transferred to Butler for his senior season, which is also where Patrick’s older brother, former Iowa guard Connor McCaffery, is now an assistant coach.
It’ll be kind of weird not having a McCaffery on the roster, and Iowa certainly could have used the 6-9 Patrick McCaffery for another season.
But his father also has taken steps to prepare for Patrick’s absence by adding Traore, Koch and Tadjo.
Fans will have their first chance to see this team play when Iowa hosts Minnesota-Duluth in an exhibition game on Oct. 25 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
It’ll be the start of what could prove to be an entertaining season.
