Hawkeye LinkedIn at Iowa City West this boys’ basketball season

IOWA CITY — Val Barnes brings the ball up the court, as Fran McCaffery shouts out an offensive play from the sideline. Billy Taylor also helps direct the attack.

Acie Earl seeks to post up inside, while Jeff Moe floats out toward the 3-point line. Nate Koch begins to set a screen.

This is all make believe, of course. But when you watch Iowa City West’s boys’ basketball team play, you see a Barnes (Christian), a McCaffery (Jack), a Moe (Pete), a Koch (Jacob) and an Earl (Kareem).

This particular Trojans team has connections to the Iowa Hawkeyes. An extraordinary amount of connections.

“It’s unbelievable to me,” Acie Earl said. “We never thought that we would live here. We used to tell each other ‘We’re never going to live in Iowa City.’ Now it has just completely turned the opposite. You want your kids to be here because of the area, the education. It’s a great thing to happen.”

Kareem Earl is a sophomore for West, which hosts Burlington in a Class 4A substate semifinal Friday night. He averages a shade over eight points a game as a wing player, at 6-foot-4 quite a bit shorter than his father, who played at Iowa from 1990 to 1993 and then in the NBA.

On the other side of that height thing is Pete Moe, a 6-9 senior center who’s 5 inches taller than his father, a sharp-shooting guard for the Hawkeyes from 1985 to 1988. Pete leads West in scoring (21.7) and rebounding (9.1) and recently received his first Division I offer, from Robert Morris.

The Moes moved from Indianapolis to Iowa City last year so Jeff could finish work on his degree. They stayed this year so Pete could play one more season at West.

“I’ve talked to Acie, and he says he’s going to write a book,” Jeff Moe said. “I mean, it’s pretty amazing ... It’s been fun. We (the fathers) just can’t sit together because we all yell and scream so much. It’s too much.”

“I think we expect different things,” Acie Earl said. “We understand the game at a different level. But we also respect each other’s space as well.”

You never see Earl and Val Barnes together at the gym, even though they were teammates at Iowa from 1991 to 1993. Christian Barnes is Val’s oldest son, West’s senior starting point guard.

Another son, Canaan, plays for the West sophomore team.

“He likes to talk about himself,” Christian said of his dad. “Not even necessarily about himself, but his old friends. You know ‘Your dad was this, that.’

“They’re all good people. It’s an unbelievable opportunity ... I just feel like there is more connection and chemistry when we’re playing.”

Like Kareem Earl, Jacob Koch starts for the West varsity as a sophomore. He’s probably the best shooter on the team, leading the Trojans in 3-pointers.

His father, Nate, was a walk-on at Iowa in the mid-1990s. Jacob’s sisters Emma (Dartmouth) and Audrey (Providence) play Division I college basketball.

Then it’s Jack McCaffery, the youngest son of the Iowa head coach. He averages 10 points a game as a 6-8 freshman, someone who reminds you of a combination of his older brothers, current Hawkeyes players Connor and Patrick.

When schedules permit, you see Connor, Patrick, Fran and Margaret McCaffery together at Jack’s games. Connor and Patrick are hearty rooters of their little (not so little) bro and always there with advice.

“He’s still young, he’s a freshman, he’s 15, he’s still trying to work his way through it,” Patrick McCaffery said. “I think it helps him that both me and Connor went through the same thing, the same exact thing. It’s a grind of a season, and it’s the first time he’s gone through it. It’s very different than AAU.”

How does Jack feel about so many teammates with Hawkeyes ties?

“I think it’s pretty cool,” he said. “I don’t know, it’s very close knit. We’re just very close knit. Even Savion, Coach Taylor’s son. Even though he’s hurt, he’s with us.”

He’s speaking of Savion Taylor, a junior wing and son of Iowa assistant coach Billy Taylor. Savion was a key member of this West team until a nagging knee injury forced him to have season-ending knee surgery.

The connections reach even one last notch deeper when you consider Mason Woods is on the Trojans sophomore team. He’s the son of Iowa assistant football coach LeVar Woods.

Pretty incredible.

“We have tons of positive input and good criticism to help us improve and improve the team,” Christian Barnes said.

West Co-Coach Paul Rundquist was asked if there was an advantage to having kids whose dads played at high levels.

“It helps from the competitive side of it,” Rundquist said. “You don’t have to worry about them not understanding that it takes a lot of hard work to be good. They get that. That certainly helps with that.”

The loss of Taylor and West’s relative inexperience has led to an uneven season. The Trojans take a 13-8 record into the postseason.

They started out 7-0 but lost their final three regular-season games and five of their final six.

“Teams are going to go at them,” Acie Earl said. “That adds fuel to their fire. If i was them, if I was their parents, I’d be telling them ‘Hey, go at Earl’s son. Go at McCaffery’s son.’ Get a reputation off of them. I think that’s what they don’t understand. They are going to get everyone’s best shot. They’re figuring it out the hard way now.”

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