Hawkeye newcomers say they’re quickly gelling in Iowa City

IOWA CITY, Iowa (KCRG) – Iowa welcomes six new players this season, and head coach Fran McCaffery says the incoming freshman and transfer class fill holes in the lineup.

“I think they fit what we lost,” McCaffery said. “We needed to get some more depth, more size, I think we’ll be a really good rebounding team, we didn’t have a lot of depth in the front court the last couple years, but we do now.”

Drew Thelwell and Seydou Traore come in with college experience from Morehead State and Manhattan College respectively. Two of the top freshman are Cooper Koch and Chris Tradjo, they’ll be joined by walk-ons Trey Buchanan and Jacob Koch.

Several newcomers say team chemistry is one of the things that attracted them to Iowa.

“How the team is always together, they’re all doing stuff together, so I really love the team and I love the people over here,” said Tadjo, who comes to Iowa from Montreal, and grew up in Africa.

They newcomers and returners have become fast friends.

“We’re always hanging out, whether it’s on the court or off the court,” said Koch. “We’re always going to each other’s apartments, going to dinner the team chemistry’s gonna be really high this year.”

“We’ve been in the gym a lot, we’ve got a good group of guys that loves to stay in the gym,” said Traore. “It’s gonna be a fun season, (we’ll) win a lot of games.“

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