The Hawkeye men’s basketball team will take on Sioux Falls in the Hawkeyes’ first exhibition of the season.
By Kyle Mann and Ian Murphy

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The Iowa basketball team will hit the floor to kick off the 2015-16 season with an exhibition game against Sioux Falls this evening.

The Cougars of the Northern Sun Conference aren’t forecast to provide an ultra-competitive matchup, but it will offer Hawkeye fans their first opportunity to get a glimpse of what they’re working with this season. Here are what basketball reporters Ian Murphy and Kyle Mann say to keep an eye on in the first action of the new year:

Frontcourt frenzy

Adam Woodbury, along with Jarrod Uthoff, will headline this year’s squad, but while head coach Fran McCaffery theoretically has the depth to work around Uthoff should he be hurt or ineffective, there’s not much else  down low after Woodbury.

The 7-foot senior is in a position to carry his team, and he sounds both confident and excited in anticipation of playing upwards of 30 minutes per game. Regardless of how well he is able to answer the call, the Hawkeyes will need to find at least one or two other players who can take on post duties if need be.

With really no other semblance of a true post player on the roster, it can be expected that the Hawkeyes will schematically use the players they do have.

“Our system is set up in a way that the Stretch-4 man is going to be very productive,” Woodbury said. “It obviously helps me out; there’s not another guy clogging the paint down there, and when he wants to go down there, I’ll get out of his way and he can go to work.”

Uthoff will likely start at power forward, but after that, Dom Uhl, Dale Jones, and freshmen Ahmad Wagner and Brandon Hutton could get  opportunities to show what they can do.

Fresh(man) talent

Wagner and Hutton are just two members of a five-freshman recruiting class brought in by McCaffery, and they could all vy for playing time.

Andrew Fleming, Christian Williams, and Isaiah Moss round out a talented group, and partially because of having to shift players around given the lack of frontcourt depth, McCaffery says who plays may come down to versatility.

“They all have caught my eye in a lot of different ways; how that will manifest itself specifically, we have too much time to figure that out,” McCaffrey said at the team’s media day. “It’s going to be who can take what they’ve done so far, and then go play three positions legitimately. Everybody thinks he can play three positions, but not a lot of guys can remember three positions.”

Iowa has had a few weeks of preparation before tonight’sgame, and fans will be eager to see which of the young players can emerge as effective.

The clock changing

The change in of the shot clock from 35 seconds to 30 seconds created a significant, well-documented amount of chatter at the Big Ten media day in Rosemont, Illinois.

The Hawkeyes will likely press more to force the opposing team’s hands this season, and although the effect of the shot clock remains to be seen, it could be an X-factor for the Hawkeyes.

“We probably will try to press a little bit more, but we press a fair amount anyway,” McCaffrey said.

The Hawkeyes, although not because of the change in the shot clock, will try to move the ball down the court quicker as well.

The fifth man

McCaffrey has hinted the fifth starter will be senior Anthony Clemmons, who both started and came off the bench last season.

There’s no reason to think Clemmons won’t start, especially because Uhl will back up Woodbury at center, and McCaffrey went as far as he could go in naming Clemmons the starter without naming him.

“Can almost count Clemmons as a fifth starter. And after that, everybody’s young,” McCaffrey said. “With the exception of Dom Uhl. He’s the only one who played; everybody else is a guy who sat out last year, freshman or transfer didn’t play last year.”

The youth elsewhere on the lineup, combined with the necessity to play Uhl in the paint, supports the belief that Clemmons will be the fifth man when the Hawkeyes take the court.

Follow @IanfromIowa and @kylefmann on Twitter for Iowa men’s basketball news, updates, and analysis.