Hawkeye Sports Daily Rewind: NCAA updates & soccer team advances

It’s the offseason for Iowa’s major sports and while baseball is keeping the lights on, news flow these days is much more ebb and flow. In an effort to keep things fresh, we’re trying something new: a daily recap of the news in Hawkeye sports land. The BHGP staff typically shares things as they come up throughout each day and we debate the validity of a full scale article against the time constraints of the staff writers. That won’t change, but we will be trying to compile those news items we share back and forth into something for the BHGP community to discuss rather than to pop up sporadically on other posts.

Feedback welcome in the comments.

Hawkeye soccer has reversed course in postseason play

After a dismal regular season which saw the Iowa Hawkeyes go 4-8-1 with just 3 goals (I’m presuming their fourth win came with an opponents’ own goal??), the Hawks have progressed to the Big Ten Tournament finals after a 1-NIL victory over top-seeded and #6 ranked Penn State.

The Nittany Lions were the defending tournament champions and Iowa’s victory will have them take on the winner of Wisconsin/Rutgers. The Hawks held on with in 11 v 10 play for 30 minutes and withstood 11 PSU shots on goal.

The championship is Sunday at 11 am CDT on Big Ten Network.

NCAA rules update.

In two news releases which did not surprise anyone, the NCAA announced all transfers will be immediately eligible for the 2021-22 calendar and the recruiting period is resurrected starting June 1st.

It’s worth noting that the five sports which have the one-time transfer are the only five which require student-athletes to sit out a year. We’ll keep apprised if that becomes a permanent decision as it feels like a cottage industry (athletes hiring lawyers to guide them through the process) worth eliminating.

The recruiting entered a dead period due to COVID-19 travel restrictions and the June 1st announcement means prospective athletes will be able to visit campuses officially. Iowa football had their plans in the hopper and released their camp calendar, slightly ahead of the official announcement.

I don’t know why, but the delineation between “BIG MAN” and “ELITE” (big men can’t be elite???) and “semi-skill” cracks me up. Who am I to judge as I am neither big, elite, skilled, or even semi-skilled.

Where will Fran McCaffery go next?

Matthew Bain of the Des Moines Register had his recruiting mailbag where he took a look at Iowa’s options after Liam Robbins commitment to Vanderbilt. The takeaway? A lot of eggs are in the Filip Rebraca basket:

I caught up with Rebraca on Tuesday, and he told me that Iowa is still very much in the mix for him. The other schools involved at this point, he said, Minnesota, South Carolina, Iona, Utah, San Diego State, Maryland, Oklahoma and Stanford.

Rebraca told me he anticipates having another Zoom visit with Iowa later this week.

I generally agree with Bain’s assessment that Iowa was looking to bring both Rebraca and Robbins on board to shore up the post. I do have some skepticism Rebraca would be enough at the 5 even with Riley Mulvey’s reclassification. The North Dakota transfer has a track record but the Big Ten is a step up for the 6’9” Serbian vs. Robbins’ 24 minutes a game for Minnesota.

His recruitment, though, does indicate a potential change in scheme as his shooting is perhaps the most translatable skill into the Big Ten. 5 out!

Special teams beef:

No dog in the fight but things are escalating.

And that’s a wrap on your rewind for Thursday, April 15th. Catch you all tomorrow. Feel free to let us know what we missed in the comments.