UNI men’s basketball summer check-in: How the transfers are fitting in

CEDAR FALLS — Getting back to the grind of summer workouts has been a pleasant change of pace for the Northern Iowa men’s basketball staff.

After seven departures from last season’s roster via the transfer portal, Ben Jacobson and his assistants worked tirelessly this spring to sign four transfers and a walk-on to add to their duo of 2024 high school signees.

That amount of roster turnover has led to summer workouts looking much different from a year ago.

“Right now some of our summer stuff is installing our offense and teaching the new guys our terminology or how it works and why it works and why we’re doing what we’re doing,” UNI assistant coach Seth Tuttle said.

While time is needed for installing offense and defense, Tuttle pointed out the early returns on their remade roster have revealed a highly competitive group.

“We got some guys that will finish a team workout and they’re like, ‘Hey, we’re not done yet! Let’s go some more — we got some hours,’” Tuttle said. “As crazy of a world we’re living in with (college) athletics there are still guidelines we gotta follow and our guys are competitive, they’re hungry, they want more and that’s the fun part about it.”

Six-foot-5 Virginia transfer Leon Bond and 6-7 Loyola-Chicago transfer Ben Schwieger headline UNI’s spring signees as the program’s two Division I acquisitions.

Tuttle said hitting the weight room will be critical throughout the summer. At the same time he lauded the added size Bond and Schwieger bring to the backcourt.

“The versatility that those two bring, being able to dribble, pass, shoot, score and then also be much bigger and longer at that wing position for us really changes how we do things and what we look like as a team,” Tuttle said. “Ben is a better shooter than Leon right now, but Leon is making some huge strides in terms of his catch-and-shoot shot.”

Meanwhile, Division II transfer Max Weisbrod — the 2023-2024 Great Lakes Intercollegiate Athletic Conference player of the year at Northern Michigan — is limited to conditioning work as he recovers from offseason foot surgery.

“He broke (the) fifth metatarsal — the little bone on the outside of your foot — which is a more than normal thing for basketball players to have happen,” Tuttle said. “So, he had to get surgery, so we haven’t seen him do anything yet. The way in which he approaches his (conditioning) workouts (though), trying to get himself in shape and just his overall attitude and demeanor, he’s a very, very competitive kid.”

Coe College transfer Cael Schmitt, Cedar Falls’ Cade Courbat, Norwalk’s Redek Born and Will Hornseth from De Pere High School in Wisconsin make up UNI’s other newcomers.

Hornseth, a 6-8, 200 pound forward, already has made some attention-grabbing plays in the Panthers’ workouts this month.

“The best thing I can tell you right now is he has a chance to be very, very special,” Tuttle said. “He makes the game look really easy and he moves really well. He moves as well as an Adam Koch in terms of he could really guard a two through five.

“We’re really excited about what he could become, because we think we found a special one in Will.”