Athleticism, rebounding, depth — Iowa has restocked its men’s basketball front line

IOWA CITY — From Peoria, from Montreal, from the Bronx.

The Iowa men’s basketball coaching staff has traveled near and far to stock its roster with some 6-foot-7, 6-foot-8 runners and jumpers to help man its front line.

“We needed to get some more depth, some more size,” Hawkeyes Coach Fran McCaffery said Monday. “I think we will be a really good rebounding team.

“We didn't have a lot of depth to the frontcourt the last couple of years. We do now.”

The newbies are 6-7 sophomore Seydou Traore and 6-8 freshmen Cooper Koch and Chris Tadjo. A blurb on each:

Seydou Traore

The 6-7, 215-pound Traore, from the Bronx, played last season at Manhattan of the Division I Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. He averaged 11.8 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.3 blocks and 34.2 minutes, numbers not to sneeze at from any freshman at the D-I level.

Traore had 16 points and eight rebounds in a game against Kansas, 13 and eight against eventual national champion Connecticut.

“Keegan and Kris Murray (played) the same kind of position I play,” Traore said, “so it’s just a perfect fit for me.”

Chris Tadjo

Montreal’s Tadjo is 6-8, 220. He played last season for NBA Academy Latin America in Mexico. His native country is Ivory Coast.

“I would say people describe me as I have a huge motor,” Tadjo said. “I love playing basketball.”

Cooper Koch

Koch, from Peoria, Ill., is 6-8, 205. He is the son of J.R. Koch, who played power forward at Iowa from 1995-1999. Cooper Koch is more of a wing.

“I think we all bring different pieces,” Koch said. “I can space the floor, shoot the 3. Chris is really versatile, gets up and down the floor. He can play the 4 or the 5. Seydou can space the floor and he’s very athletic, too.”

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Iowa knows Owen Freeman is its starting center and Payton Sandfort has the small forward starting job. What it needed was options at the other forward position and players to join sophomores Ladji Dembele and Pryce Sandfort to build depth.

“The good thing is all those (new) guys are versatile,” McCaffery said. “They can play different positions, they can all dribble, pass and shoot. So each of them fit perfectly into what we're trying to do.

“Cooper, he can really score. He can play more than one position, handles it, stretches the floor, shoots 3s, but also rebounds the ball.

“Chris has got tremendous athletic power. He’s a phenomenally intense player. Really, really plays hard. He's as good an athlete as you're going to see anywhere in the country

“Seydou, who is skilled, also versatile, played a year already at a very high level. … He could pretty much play 2, 3, 4.

“Love those three guys.”

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