Cooper Koch exits portal, returns to Iowa
New Iowa head coach Ben McCollum received a bit of good news on Sunday morning. McCollum has been in the process of rebuilding the Hawkeye roster after seeing nine eligible players from the team enter the NCAA transfer portal.
The good news he received was that Cooper Koch announced via Instagram that he would be returning to Iowa City for his second season in the program.
Koch will likely be considered a redshirt freshman after dealing with an undisclosed medical condition starting last summer and resurfacing twice early in the season and eventually shutting down his year after playing in seven games. This season he averaged 1.6 points per game those very limited minutes.
He entered the NCAA Transfer portal on March 19th and received interest from several high major programs and was rumored to have made an official visit to DePaul in the last two weeks. But, the son of former Iowa Hawkeye player J.R. Koch decided that he would be coming back to Iowa City and playing for the new head coach.
Coming out of high school, Koch was a consensus four star prospect according to On3.com’s rankings. In the consensus rankings from On3.com, he was ranked as the 87th best prospect in the Class of 2024. Out of high school he was offered by Illinois, Wisconsin, Wake Forest, Purdue, and Indiana.
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Iowa’s roster now includes six players, according to their on-line list. Those players include scholarship players Seydou Traore, Isaiah Johnson-Arigu, and Carter Kingsbury. It also includes walk-on players Nate Koch and Trey Buchanan.
McCollum indicated at this opening press conference that he was actively trying to get Josh Dix and Pryce Sandfort to return to the Iowa roster. Dix was on a visit to Illinois this weekend and is actively being recruited by several programs, including Kansas. Sandfort recently visited Nebraska and is also considering a visit to Illinois.
It has been reported that Iowa will be adding Drake’s Bennett Stirtz, who was the Missouri Valley Player of the Year last season, averaging 19.2 points and 4.3 rebounds, and 5.7 assists per game. Also entering the transfer portal from the Bulldogs are 6-foot-8 forward Cam Manyawu and 6-foot-5 wing Isaia Howard.
