"I grew up loving the Hawkeyes," Gatens said. "It was always my dream to play here. Iowa fans have a saying: 'Once a Hawkeye, always a Hawkeye.'"

In McCaffery's second season, the Hawkeyes are still rebuilding. McCaffery has two ESPN top-100 recruits, both Iowa natives, on board for 2012. Which is all well and good, Gatens said, but as a senior with just a few more weeks left in his career, he isn't content to go down without a fight. Frankly, he's running out of time.

"I'm just trying to get this program back to where it deserves to be," he said. "We've got a lot of young guys here. The program is going to be fine. But we seniors want to go out and create our own memories for the fans too.

"You just want to get everything you can out of it. We want to get the tournament. We haven't done it, but if we keep playing the way we are down the stretch, I think we can get into that conversation."