IOWA CITY - Iowa’s first real measuring stick arrives Tuesday night, and it comes with a familiar uncertainty hanging over the Hawkeyes.
Drew McKeever remains the biggest question on the board. The 7-foot-3 center, a Saint Mary’s (Calif.) transfer expected to matter a lot for Iowa this season, is still dealing with a back problem that kept him out of both of the Hawkeyes’ first two games last week. Iowa rolled past Lipscomb and Eastern Illinois in those contests, but McKeever was absent after starting and playing 14 minutes in the team’s official exhibition against Illinois Springfield two weeks ago.
Whether he suits up against Virginia Tech in Sioux City is still up in the air, and coach Ben McCollum isn’t pretending otherwise.
“I’m not lying. I really don’t totally know,” McCollum said Monday morning.
“The best way that I can describe it is I go into the games with two different plans and then figure it out from there. That’s what I did last game, that’s what I’ll do this game.”
McCollum said backs are especially hard to predict, which makes the situation more complicated than the usual injury call.
“It’s just one of those things that backs are strange,” he said.
“An ankle is obvious. It’s like OK, you’ve got a sprained ankle, you’re fine.
But backs are so tricky. It’s like soft tissue injuries, you just have no idea how it’s going to feel the next day … I think he definitely could play (Tuesday), and I do have a plan in case he does play.”
The matchup itself should tell Iowa plenty. Virginia Tech comes in 2-0 as well, and the Hokies have already stacked up two blowout wins by more than 30 points each. Four Virginia Tech players are scoring in double figures early, and forward Amani Hansberry arrives as a preseason all-ACC player.
For Iowa, the bigger picture is still about sorting out who fits where. The Hawkeyes have used the same starting five in both games so far - Kael Combs, Cooper Koch, Cam Manyawu, Tate Sage and Isaia Howard - but the top scorer in each game has come off the bench.
That’s part of the identity McCollum is still trying to pin down.
“It’s going to be such a unique team,” McCollum said. “Every team is different than the others, and we’re just … It’s just going to continue to take us a little bit of time to really find our rhythm and find the lineups that we’re supposed to be playing.
You find a lot of those different things based off who we’re playing. I think every game we learn a little bit more, and I think that’s going to happen for a little while.
“Hopefully, while you’re trying to piece some of that stuff together, you can win the games as well. And you know, right now we’re so focused on making sure that we get better and better and better, because I do think we’ve got a chance to be a good team.
I just don’t think we’re there yet, and I think a lot of that is trying to figure out what we’re going to be offensively, defensively, et cetera. But we’re trending in the right direction.”
Tuesday’s game is the first of three neutral-site dates for Iowa around the state. McCollum said he likes the setup better than heading off to a two-game tournament somewhere else.
The Tyson Events Center in Sioux City seats 10,000, and TicketMaster listed available tickets for Tuesday night as limited. Iowa will also play Sunday afternoon at Casey’s Center in Des Moines against Creighton before returning there Dec. 21 for a game against Alabama.
“We’re in front of people, and all over the state,” McCollum said. “And it’s just better than, again, like I’ve said before, going to San Diego or anything like that.
You know, it’s just better to be able to do it this way, in my opinion. To be able to generate a crowd.”
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Iowa Opens Big Four Stretch With One Lingering Concern After UConn
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Now Iowa turns to Northern Iowa to open its in-state stretch, with the Hawkeyes looking to clean up the issues that showed up against one of the nations top programs. There was also some off-court news for the program, as Iowa announced national letters of intent from 2027 recruits Jada Seubert and Khalia Hartwell, a reminder that the staff is still building for the future even as it tries to steady the present. [Read more 🡒]