Iowa rookies at different stages

IOWA CITY - Graduation hit Iowa at key areas last spring, and the Hawkeyes brought in three scholarship newcomers to help alleviate those departures.

Gone is first-team all-Big Ten guard Devyn Marble, who now plays for the NBA's Orlando Magic. Forwards Melsahn Basabe and Zach McCabe now play basketball abroad in Poland and Georgia, respectively. That trio combined for 3,684 points, 409 games played and 244 starts.

Sophomore point guard Trey Dickerson, freshman forward Dominque Uhl and freshman shooting guard Brady Ellingson are unlikely to seamlessly replace that production this year. That's not their responsibility, either. That's for the veteran holdovers. But Coach Fran McCaffery has high hopes the newcomers can develop quickly into contributors this year and ultimately become cogs for the future.

Dickerson, a transfer from Williston (N.D.) Junior College, averaged 19.8 points, 5.7 assists and 3.5 rebounds a game last year as a third-team junior-college All-American. He stands 6 feet but provides a burst of speed unlike anyone on Iowa's roster.

'(Trey) has been picking stuff up, and we're throwing a lot at him,” Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery said Wednesday. 'The thing with him is ... it's always a fine line. He's kind of a 'go guy,” gets it and goes and reads and evaluates situations quickly and makes plays. It's perfectly suited for our style, except there's times when you've got to slow it down a little bit and run an offense from a set play and things like that.”

Dickerson is operating behind juniors Mike Gesell and Anthony Clemmons but all three will share time at point guard.

'The next step for (Dickerson) will be taking over as a new player, that leadership responsibility of getting everyone else where they have to be,” McCaffery said. 'That oftentimes is a much more difficult process than you would think.”

Uhl, 6-8, hails from Frankfurt, Germany but competed the last two seasons for Point Pleasant Beach (N.J.) High School. He's slated to play behind forwards Jarrod Uthoff and Aaron White but brings energy and athletic ability off the bench.

McCaffery raved about Uhl's skill level - of which he compared favorably to White - and said Uhl will play quite a bit early in the season.

'He can put it on the floor,” McCaffery said. 'He can make a play for himself. He can make a play for somebody else. He's a really good rebounder. He's thin. He's got to get stronger, and he's got to get himself to where he can maintain the pace of the game at this level. That's going to be hard for him in the beginning because essentially of the speed with which we play.

'He's going to have to some freshman moments, but he's going to have some times when you look and say, ‘That guy can play and he's going to really help our team.'”

Ellingson, a 6-4 shooter, has suffered from foot problems since stepping on campus in June. He first had treatment on his foot this summer, then a surgery. His foot started to heal, then he experienced a setback.

'With foot problems you have to be careful because if you come back too soon, it sort of never goes away,” McCaffery said. 'We gave him a little bit more time and he's feeling better. So we'll see where it goes the next couple weeks. His spirits have been good and he's locked in and everything.”

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