Iowa forward Cooper Koch joined a different team without leaving Iowa City

IOWA CITY — The way it usually works in college basketball is that a player will go to a different team.

For Iowa redshirt freshman forward Cooper Koch, the team came to him.

Koch was the only scholarship player who stayed with the Hawkeyes after last season. He had played in 10 games, immediately being part of Fran McCaffery’s player rotation. He scored 14 points in a game against New Hampshire.

Health issues sidelined him, though, so he red-shirted. Then McCaffery was fired in March, and the rest of Iowa’s scholarship players with remaining eligibility scattered around the nation to different schools. Koch, from Peoria, Ill., listened to new coach Ben McCollum’s pitch and stayed.

“I really like Coach McCollum and what he envisioned for the program,” Koch said Wednesday, “and it's turned out pretty good so far and I think it's going to be beneficial for me. I think the Iowa fan base is going to love what he does for the team and the culture.”

Koch has started Iowa’s first two games, both wins. He has averaged 22 minutes and scored eight points in each game. He has made 6 of his 8 shot attempts and 3 of 4 three-point tries.

Back in the spring, McCollum said, “We just showed him film on what fits our program. We typically will have a lot of length that can shoot, and he's 6-8, can shoot, can really pass it, can do a variety of things. There's a level of versatility to his game. We try to find that within our players.

“So it's just a good fit for him.”

Koch went from being one of the new guys last year to, well, more of the same.

“Felt like I was the new guy, even though I'd been here for a year,” he said. “So it was definitely weird at first, having a whole new coaching staff, teammates, new program. It was a little weird at first, but it got a lot more comfortable as the summer went on.”

Koch and his team face Xavier at Carver-Hawkeye Arena Friday at 7 p.m.

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