Jordan Bohannon couldn’t pass up one more year of Hawkeye basketball
IOWA CITY, Iowa (BVM) — Iowa Hawkeyes redshirt senior guard Jordan Bohannon announced Monday he was coming back for one more season, taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility given out by the NCAA due to COVID.
One Final Year🤷🏻♂️
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S/o @LucasJPauley for the video💪🏼 pic.twitter.com/GdDInDMBPK— Jordan Bohannon (@JordanBo_3) April 26, 2021
However, this was not a guarantee. In a press conference held Tuesday, Bohannon stated that he had every intention of moving on with his career, playing professionally here in the United States or overseas.
“Some things had to fall in line for this opportunity for me to come back and want to consider coming back,” Bohannon said. “I think that a lot of those things helped me out to make a clear decision.”
One of those things for Bohannon was making sure that his coming back for another didn’t stunt the development of sophomore guard Joe Toussaint who stepped up this past season when Bohannon was injured.
“One of the reasons why I made the decision early on that I wasn’t going to come back is I didn’t want to impact Joe Toussaint and his development as a player,” Bohannon said.
Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery began to recruit Bohannon into returning for a sixth season and addressed those concerns Bohannon had but the experience was still interesting for the fifth year senior.
“Fran basically was re-recruiting me this past two weeks which is very weird because I’m 23 years old and I’m getting re-recruited,” Bahannon said.
During that time, McCaffery explained what he wanted out of Bohannon this season and what his role would be. He would play mostly the two-guard position, allowing Toussaint to continue as point guard. Bohannon would also be an important leader for a young team.
Along with his re-recruitment, Bohannon was seeking advice from his family and his brothers in particular, all of them former Hawkeye basketball players themselves. According to Bohannon, they all said that they would go back for another year of college basketball if they could, and Bohannon had that chance.
“I didn’t want to kind of have that regret later in my life,” Bohannon said.
With the school record holder in 3-pointers made (364), assists (639), free-throw percentage (.887, 290-327) and games played (143) returning, the focus now turns to the upcoming season.
“I think it’ll be way more fun and exciting this year. Not to say last year wasn’t it just never felt like a real season,” Bohannon said.
The fans aren’t the only thing Bohannon is looking forward to. This Hawkeye team will undoubtedly be an underdog heading into the season. It’s a role Bohannon has relished throughout his career and was a part of the pitch given by McCaffery to get him to return.
“We’re technically underdogs again, something that I thrive on,” Bohannon said.
Proving the doubters wrong will be the main goal of Bohannon’s this season and he is already excited about what this team will be able to do come fall.
“I think what we have is a great combination of leaders as well as young talent that can make an impact and I think that’ll be really exciting for Hawkeye fans to watch,” Bohannon said.
