LUNCH LINKS TESTS THE NBA WATERS

Hello.

The biggest piece of recent Hawkeye news is Isaiah Moss’ decision to test the NBA draft waters. I don’t know how to make it more clear that does NOT mean he’s declaring for the draft. People on Facebook tend not to read headlines or entire articles at all, it appears.

There is literally no downside for Moss in going through this process. He will learn what parts of his game he needs to work on from actual NBA scouts, and hopefully take that advice back to Iowa City. I fully expect Moss to suit up in the Black and Gold next year, with some parts of his game vastly improved, hopefully.

Semi-related, this is a situation to keep an eye on*:

*no it’s not, Fortnite is a video game and this is satire from our point guard*

Now, on to football:

• Toren Young is poised to be the next great Iowa running back, according to Chad Leistikow. I suspect Young, who’s from Madison but didn’t get an offer from the Badgers, will be playing with a bit of a chip on his shoulder when Bucky comes to town in the fall.
• Levi Paulsen is out for spring practice with an undisclosed injury. He came in to camp as the starting right guard on the two-deeps. Cole Banwart and Paulsen’s twin brother, Landan, are getting reps there. And even though Tristan Wirfs was listed as the starting left tackle while Alaric Jackson was on the right side, it looks as those two will switch and play the positions they lined up at last season.
• There are only four scholarship running backs on the roster this spring: Young, Ivory Kelly-Martin, Kyshaun Bryan and Camron Harrell. That’s the first and last time I’m going to write that sentence.

This was March

Congrats to Jim the Adequate for winning Black Heart Gold Bracket. He correctly picked 39 games, including the Villanova-Michigan championship. Hold your head up high, Jim the Adequate.

The Groundhog Wins Again

This weekend’s series against Ohio State has been pushed back a day due to some ... inclement weather in Iowa City.

I don’t feel too great about this series being played at all at this time. Which is too bad, because Iowa.

Speaking of baseball, former Iowa slugger Jake Adams is paying his dues not too far from Iowa City, playing for Houston Astros affiliate Quad Cities River Bandits.

And the rest

• Meet the six year-old Iowa wrestler battling cancer. Great stuff from Cody Goodwin here. On that same note, former Iowa lineman Colin Cole’s wife, Kaye, is running for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society’s Woman of the Year.
• The Ringer has Josh Jackson and James Daniels going in the first round of their latest mock NFL draft.
• Pat McCaffery just finished up playing in an invitational tournament in San Antonio with the top basketball prospects in the country. Since he’s the son of Fran, the Iowa head coach got to look at some top-end talent that other coaches aren’t privy to.

“I can only talk as a parent,” [Fran McCaffery] said. “I thought it was a fabulous day. I thought in terms of organization, the USA Basketball message to the kids. And I thought the games were really good. The kids defended, they competed, it wasn’t an all-star game mentality.”

• The Big Ten League of Legends Championships start this weekend, if you’re in to that kind of thing.
• The NCAA basketball championship produced some pretty awesome sports pages for newspapers:

• The life of Major League Baseball’s scorekeepers.
• Please listen to Shohei Ohtani’s first MLB home run call in his native tongue:

Go forth, and go Hawks.