Sandfort Good to Go, Traore a “Game-Time Decision” for Northwestern

Just five weeks into the 2024-25 season, the Iowa men’s basketball team has faced its fair share of adversity in the injury department.

Josh Dix missed time with a wrist injury, Owen Freeman missed a game with an illness, Riley Mulvey and Even Brauns have had to sit out for a variety of health reasons, Chris Tadjo has missed games while in concussion protocol, Seydou Traore missed the first couple games of the season with a lower leg injury, sprained his ankle against USC-Upstate and is considered a “game-time decision” for Iowa’s matchup with Northwestern on Tuesday, and Cooper Koch is out indefinitely after an injury he sustained in practice.

Though Payton Sandfort hasn’t missed any time yet, he’s also been nursing a wrist injury that took place against Washington State. The senior forward hasn’t seen the injury bug bite this hard and this frequently in his four years with the program.

“It’s just super unlucky what’s going on with everybody,” Sandfort said. “We delt with it a little bit before Eastern Illinois when we got beat here [two years ago]. We had a lot of guys out. That would’ve been the last time we really delt with something like this.”

Sandfort recognizes the team-wide health issues have made it a little more difficult for him to bounce back, too.

“There have probably been times where I’ve been on the floor when I shouldn’t have been,” he said. “I was just trying to keep being the leader, even if I wasn’t 100%.”

Sandfort’s wrist injury reared its ugly head in Iowa’s 77-69 loss to Utah State just under a couple weeks ago. Regarded as one of the top shooters in the Big Ten — if not the country — Sandfort shot 4-of-18 from the field and 1-of-13 from three.

“I just wasn’t good enough,” Sandfort said following the loss. “If I’m myself tonight, we win. I take 100% responsibility for it. … I just can’t really do much, in life or in basketball right now. I’ve got to be able to make those shots anyway.”

In the meantime, players at the end of the bench have picked up some of the slack from regular rotation players — like him, Traore or Koch.

“I think a lot of guys on our team have done a really good job of stepping up,” Sandfort said. “Riley has played really good minutes. Carter (Kingsbury) is a really good player. He’s going to keep playing, he’s been playing well. A lot of guys have been waiting their turn for years. … I’m proud of the way the guys have stepped up.”

Going forward, Sandfort is framing the extra minutes at the end of the bench as a positive.

“It’s brought our team closer together,” he said. “A lot of other leaders have emerged from this. We’re more together because of it. Once everybody is back out there, we’ll have a lot of weapons that have had playing time this year and can contribute to winning games in the Big Ten.”

Now ten days removed from that woeful shooting performance against Utah State and currently at the tail end of a week off from playing, Sandfort said his wrist is “good” and that he’d “figured some things out” with the injury.

“I figured out how to get it better,” he said. “I feel comfortable, and I have my tools back. So I’m good to go.”

Fran McCaffery affirmed that the break over Thanksgiving was good for his team’s second-leading scorer.

“He’s had to deal with [the injury] for a while now,” McCaffery said. “I give him credit because he keeps grinding. A lot of guys would shut it down and make excuses. He just keeps plugging away.”

With Sandfort and potentially Traore in the lineup, Iowa will face off with the Northwestern (6-2) at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, December 3 in Carver-Hawkeye Arena. The game will be broadcast on Peacock.