Big Ten Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2022-23 season
team. 483. . . . Hawkeyes . 8
Iowa is a tough team to forecast, which is why the middle of the pack feels right for them. Fran McCaffery’s team is always dangerous, but it’s fair to be skeptical after losing the same level of talent and experience as Wisconsin.
Last season was one of McCaffery’s best in his decade with the Hawkeyes. The team won 26 games, the most in more than three decades. The team also won the Big Ten conference tournament, only for the typical postseason letdown to come in the first round against Richmond.
That team included future NBA Draft lottery pick Keegan Murray, who had the most prolific scoring season in school history, and six-season stalwart Jordan Bohannon. Next year’s squad won’t.
Murray’s brother, Kris, will likely be taking the reins as the team’s best player. He averaged 9.7 points per game, but has only started once in his two seasons at Iowa. He should be able to take a leap in a bigger role, but asking him to live up to Keegan is unfair and unlikely to transpire.
The other alpha on the team will be one of the coach’s sons, Patrick McCaffery. He started for all but one game last year, averaging 10.5 points per game. If he can knock down more than 33 percent of his threes this season, he could be the team’s primary scorer.
After that? Concerning. Filip Rebraca will be the team’s best big man and he needs to gain more trust from the coach. He started every game last year, but barely played more than 21 minutes per game, resulting in an average of 5.8 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. Rebraca will need to work on cutting down on fouls.
Who is going to score for this team when Murray and McCaffery need a rest? Tony Perkins? Payton Sandford? It’s not an inspiring group.
At this point, everyone knows better than to doubt a Fran McCaffery squad (in the regular season, anyways). But this doesn’t look like one of his Big Ten title contending teams of yore.