Even Brauns embraces return to Iowa City, works to be leader

IOWA CITY — Even Brauns vividly remembers the “really fun experience” at the Iowa-Illinois men’s basketball game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in early 2020.

It was a white-out game. The student section at a sold-out Carver-Hawkeye Arena “was crazy,” said Brauns, who was a senior at Iowa City High at the time.

Luka Garza hit four 3-pointers in the Iowa win. After Garza swished one from the top of the key, Brauns remembered “everyone went nuts.”

“Seeing that, especially in high school, I was like, ‘Yeah, this is legit. This is what I want,’” Brauns said.

The Iowa City native will soon get what he has wanted three-plus years later after joining the Hawkeyes via the transfer portal in the spring.

Brauns, measuring at 6-foot-10 “with shoes on” and 245 pounds, will help fill a need at the center position after Filip Rebraca’s graduation and Josh Ogundele’s decision to transfer.

Fellow transfer Ben Krikke, soon-to-be-junior Riley Mulvey and freshmen Owen Freeman and Ladji Dembele round out the rest of Iowa’s post options in 2023-24.

Brauns, who has two years of eligibility remaining, sees himself being a leader for the 2023-24 Hawkeyes.

“Being a vocal guy out there who players can trust and believe in,” Brauns said. “And kind of be an anchor for the team.”

Brauns started 29 of 30 games as a junior at Belmont last year. He averaged 7.0 points and 5.3 rebounds in 21.2 minutes per game and shot 58.3 percent from the field.

“I definitely have the ability to play more and longer and definitely wanted to,” Brauns said. “But I also understand that there’s a lot that goes into it, too.”

Brauns entered the transfer portal after the season, and it did not take long to pick a future school once he heard from Iowa’s coaching staff.

“Once they reached out, it was like the easiest thing ever,” Brauns said. “It was pretty much over at that point.”

While Brauns is officially a newcomer on the Hawkeyes’ roster, he has much more familiarity with the team than many newcomers would have.

Fellow Hawkeye Patrick McCaffery was one of Brauns’ high school teammates at Iowa City West.

“Me and Patrick have been close since high school,” Brauns said. “I’ve kept the relationship. … We kind of got a little closer as we were in college — reaching out to each other, talking about things, especially this past season.”

He also already knew Payton Sandfort, who is from Waukee.

“I knew that these would be guys that I would have no problem playing with, I would enjoy playing with,” Brauns said.

The former Missouri Valley Conference standout knows of others who have not had the luxury of familiarity when transferring to a new school.

“I have friends that have transferred into situations where they aren’t as comfortable, and it’s a hard process,” Brauns said. “You’re starting all over again.”

Being closer to home was “pretty much the No. 1 reason I hopped in the portal,” said Brauns, who had been an eight-plus-hour drive away from Iowa City in Nashville, Tenn.

It’s hard to get much closer to home than with Iowa, where he’ll be playing college games about two miles away from where he went to high school.

The reality that Brauns is now playing for the team he grew up watching finally set in during the first official practice of the summer.

“Once I got on the court with Coach and he was giving me instruction, then I really realized this is real,” Brauns said. “This is my life now.”

Comments: john.steppe@thegazette.com