[Ed-Ace: For those wondering when you'll see basketball media day and Michigan team preview content, that's coming next week, when I get a bye week breather from football. Until then, Alex has you covered on hoops preview stuff.]

Peter Jok [David Scrivner – Iowa City Press-Citizen]

PREVIOUSLY: Illinois, Indiana

It was supposed to be Fran McCaffery’s best team in Iowa City: there were four senior starters – and a junior – and those players collectively had more experience than anyone else in the conference by a decent margin. Iowa had been to the tournament in each of the previous two seasons (as an 11-seed, then as a 7-seed) and the level of continuity in the program suggested that there perhaps would be another leap. It was a long time coming after Fran McCaffery’s slow rebuild out of the disastrous Todd Lickliter era.

After the non-conference portion of the season (in which Iowa had a few losses – but no bad ones – and a good win over Wichita State), the Hawkeyes entered Big Ten play and started off hot, winning 10 of their first 11. That start was fueled by season sweeps of Michigan State and Purdue; Iowa ascended from a preseason projection of #36 nationally from Kenpom and spent an entire month of the season in the top five of the algorithm’s rankings. Stretch-4 Jarrod Uthoff and wingman Peter Jok were a formidable one-two punch; the other three senior starters and a deep frontcourt of young talent complemented them well.

A midweek loss to Indiana on the road in early February was the turning point. It was a crazy game: Indiana raced out to a 15-point lead, Iowa battled back to take the lead in the second half, and then the Hoosiers went supernova and scored 17 points in five minutes, winning somewhat comfortably in the end. From there, things spiraled: the Hawkeyes barely beat a horrible Minnesota team at home and then lost four in a row – highlighted by upset losses at Penn State and Ohio State. They won in Ann Arbor to close the regular season and briefly stopped the bleeding – and then lost their Big Ten Tournament opener to lowly Illinois.

Eventually, they were the same seed as the year before – a seven. It wasn’t the first time a McCaffery Iowa team had imploded down the stretch; they were never in danger of missing the tournament like they were in 2014, but with the amount of veteran leadership on the squad – which had been a part of the implosion before – the finish to the season, one that had been so promising, seemed inexplicable. Iowa defeated 10-seed Temple in the Round of 64 before getting routed by Villanova, the eventual national champions, in the next game.

With the graduation of Uthoff, Adam Woodbury, Mike Gesell, and Anthony Clemmons, the Hawkeyes will be forced to replace over half of the team’s minutes; luckily for Iowa, Peter Jok stayed for his senior year and should be one of the best players in the Big Ten this year. The young frontcourt players who got some seasoning last year make those spots less of a concern than point guard, where there are no returning players.

[More on the Hawkeyes after the JUMP]

LAST SEASON

Iowa was segmented into two groups: Jarrod Uthoff and Peter Jok were the go-to guys and the rest of the rotation falls along the typical downward-sloping cluster at a level of much lower usage. Fran McCaffery typically had larger rotations with more bench minutes than this, but it was much easier to whittle the rotation to the two senior guards – Mike Gesell (a true PG) and Anthony Clemmons – as well as Jok in the backcourt.

Uthoff was a fixture on the wing; Jok played quite a bit as the three, but when he left the floor or slid to the two, Nicholas Baer was an impactful sub as a redshirt freshman (now-former) walkon who played on the wing. The big man rotation was led by ground-bound senior seven-footer Adam Woodbury, a former blue-chip recruit that never quite made the anticipated impact; he was backed up by Ahmad Wagner, who often played alongside German wing Dom Uhl (or sometimes  Uthoff).

Really, it was the Jok and Uthoff show on offense: the latter was a more well-rounded scorer, getting baskets at all three levels and posting shooting splits of 48 / 38 / 81 (2P% / 3P% / FT%). Impressively, he was an elite shot blocker as well. Jok took half of his shots from three and hit at 40% – he rarely got to the rim but when he did, he was scoring mostly unassisted baskets. The two each were in the top 100 of usage rate nationally, they combined to score 35 points per game and rarely were the Hawkeyes without at least one of them on the floor.

Uthoff’s production will need replacing and Iowa will have to find point guard play from somewhere – and somebody without any experience. Woodbury’s vacated minutes will be ably replaced by Wagner (and potentially star freshman Tyler Cook), and it will be interesting to see if McCaffery, a spacing-aware coach, will be comfortable playing those two as well as Baer at the same time (Uhl is a very good three-point shooter and could be considered a stretch-center in some situations).

Four Factor Z-Scores from games against Big Ten opponents

On both offense and defense, Iowa ranked in the Top 40 of adjusted efficiency (per kenpom); their eFG% and eFG% allowed in Big Ten play – numbers which were pretty average – would suggest that they weren’t quite as good as that, but the Hawkeyes were able to make up for middling results there with generally better showings in the less important three of the four factors. The offense was largely held up by a great turnover rate and decent work on the offensive glass; defensively, they were best at avoiding fouls and giving up easy points at the free throw line.

One interesting – and surprising – metric is Iowa’s defensive rebounding rate: typically they’re very good at forcing opponents to go one-and-done, but it was a considerable minus this year. Surely some of that is due to McCaffery’s occasional deployment of the 2-3 zone, a defense that gives up plenty of offensive rebounds, but the lack of any particularly outstanding rebounders outside of Woodbury – who was better on the offensive glass. We’ll see if that problem persists this season.

NEWCOMERS

As is expected of a team that loses four senior starters, there will be a number of new faces on the floor for the Iowa Hawkeyes. In addition to a number of younger players who haven’t seen much (or any) playing time yet, there’s a five-man freshman class – one that should be impactful in time. The player best equipped to contribute right away is the most highly-rated prospect: big man Tyler Cook is a Top-100 recruit as a PF / C type – he’s an extremely athletic player with less-than-ideal size at 6’9, but seems like the kind of guy who can thrive at the college level. Cook could even start at center this season.

The other four players are perhaps more long-range developmental prospects (and all are generic three-stars): Cordell Pemsl is a versatile wing who was the top-rated recruit in the state of Iowa; Jordan Bohannon is a sweet-shooting point guard who had two brothers play at Wisconsin; Ryan Kriener is a pick-and-pop stretch big who could eventually play center; combo guard Maishe Dailey reportedly has a 6’10 wingspan and even though he’s rail-thin right now, he could mature into a defensive terror. Cook is the headliner and with him, it’s a nice class that should grow well together.

Redshirt freshman wing scorer Isaiah Moss played alongside Christian Williams (a little-used, long PG who will be a sophomore) on the scout team last year and could factor into the rotation at guard this season. Bohannon and Dailey will also get a look as Iowa seeks out a couple distributors to replace Gesell and Clemmons. The Hawkeyes also get senior wing Dale Jones back from injury.

PROJECTED ROTATION

• STARTER (COMBO GUARD) – Christian Williams (So, 6’5, 200): Under-the-radar recruit played more as his freshman season went on, was listed as a SF as a recruit but Iowa folks say he’s a PG – the only non-freshman “PG” on the roster.
• STARTER (GUARD) – Peter Jok (Sr, 6’6, 205): Likely to be among the Big Ten’s best scorers again, shooting splits of 46 / 40 / 85 are excellent with how many shots he takes, may be asked to distribute the ball more as a SG.
• STARTER (WING) – Nicholas Baer (R-So, 6’7, 205): Impressive block and steal rates (4.2 and 2.8), shot 39% from three on almost two attempts per game, not impactful on the glass, hasn’t shown ball-handling or passing chops.
• STARTER (WING) – Dom Uhl (Jr, 6’9, 217): Combo forward shot better from three (45%) than from two (40%), pretty good defender, received the most playing time of any Hawkeye reserve last year.
• STARTER (POST) – Tyler Cook (Fr, 6’9, 253): The second-best recruit of the Fran McCaffery era is expected to contribute a lot right away, vertical leap will make him a good shot-blocker and rebounder, iffy FT shooter, caveats about freshman bigs apply.
• BENCH (POINT GUARD) – Jordan Bohannon (Fr, 6’0, 182): Either he or Maishe Dailey (or perhaps both) will get run as freshman at the point, Bohannon is known as a solid shooter and has B1G bloodlines.
• BENCH (GUARD) – Brady Ellingson (R-So, 6’4, 193): He was the only backup guard for Iowa last season, though he might be stuck behind Peter Jok, was 16-17 on two-point attempts, shot 27% from three.
• BENCH (GUARD) – Isaiah Moss (R-Fr, 6’5, 205): Chicago product redshirted last season, but could crack the guard rotation if Iowa needs a shot in the arm offensively.
• BENCH (TRADITIONAL FOUR) – Ahmad Wagner (So, 6’7, 235): Very efficient low-post scorer was able to bully his way to the free throw line (only shot 51%), 6.1 fouls / 40 made it hard for him to play more than spot minutes.
• BENCH (STRETCH BIG) – Ryan Kriener (Fr, 6’9, 247): One of a few options to receive backup big minutes, may be a nice complement to a player like Wagner or Cook because of his shooting ability.

PLAYER COMPARISON

A few years ago, I came up with a system that would compare the statistical profiles of Big Ten players to their historical counterparts by taking the sum of the differences between a given player’s profile and each of the thousand player-seasons from 2008-present in twenty different statistical categories.

# value is the Z-Score of the player’s statistic (or statistics averaged over multiple seasons) relative to the entire sample

Peter Jok nicely fits a certain positional archetype: he’s one of the increasingly rare shooting guards who strictly adhere to the traditional requirements of the position – he’s not a combo guard, he’s not a guy who could theoretically play the one, but he’s a great shooter, a credible defensive stopper, and, most importantly, a player who can be counted on to carry the load scoring-wise. Indeed, with his high usage rate and his low level of assists and turnovers, he’s very much an anomaly as a guard in today’s day and age.

Quite a few of the players most comparable to Jok fit that mold as well, though perhaps not to the same level. Gary Harris, the former star Michigan State shooting guard (now with the Denver Nuggets) was a little bit more undersized at the two than Jok, but had a similarly strong steal rate, comparable three-point shooting, and an equivalent scoring impact. Lawrence Westbrook is perhaps a half-step away from those Jok and Harris, but Andre Hollins and E’Twaun Moore – both essentially combo guards – also show up multiple times in Jok’s top 15; they’re similar in many ways but the distribution is a key difference between Jok and those two.

OUTLOOK

Over Fran McCaffery’s first six seasons, Iowa’s had the following Big Ten win totals (in order): 4, 8, 9, 9, 12, 12. The Hawkeyes have made it to the NCAA Tournament each of the past three seasons, despite crippling late-season swoons in two of those three years. It will be interesting to see what happens this season – last year was the year for Iowa and it was always going to be a rebuilding project in 2016-17. Peter Jok’s correct decision to come back for his senior year definitely gave them a boost and, without any proven options around him, he’ll be taking a ton of shots and (probably) scoring a lot of points.

The nucleus of the Woodbury – Gesell class (which was later joined by Uthoff, a transfer from Wisconsin) was pretty good, but ultimately they fell short of notching a big accomplishment in the form of a conference championship or a deep run into the tournament; losing them will surely hurt in the short-run, but it will also give younger players a shot to develop. At first glance, it doesn’t seem that the roster has the potential to contend for Big Ten championships, but we’re a few years of knowing for sure.

Along with Maryland, Iowa is a team that’s likely to backslide from near the top of the league towards the middle (or even lower). Jok is great but he’s the only known quantity on the roster, really; Cook could be an impact player from day one (or not), Baer showed some really good things last year, and there are a couple frontcourt players that could surprise. Still, penciling this Iowa team in as anything more than a bubble team is going to be difficult – losing this much production is hard for any team to handle, especially a team with only one top recruit coming in. It wouldn’t be a surprise to see this team miss the tournament.