50 Days to B1G Basketball: Iowa's Latest Commit Tyler Cook Highlights 2016 Class

The Hawkeyes picked up their fourth commitment for their 2016 class with the news Wednesday night that Tyler Cook had verbally committed to Iowa. The 6'8" power forward had visited Iowa last weekend and chose the team over a number of other programs including Florida and a laundry list of other power conference programs. Cook is the fourth player currently set to join the Hawkeyes next year in a class that has been filling out nicely for Fran McCaffery.

Cook joins a class with plenty of size, as the team already has 6'9" power forward Ryan Kriener and 6'8" small forward Cordell Pemsl set to join next season. Also committed to Iowa is Jordan Bohannon, an in-state shooting guard that chose Iowa at the end of August. Cook is the highest rated out of all four prospects as he's a four-star prospect (everyone else is rated three-stars) and is ranked as the 81st best recruit in his class according to Rivals. He had spent time earlier in the year in the Nike EYBL, averaging 10.2 points and 5.8 rebounds per game. The forward shot an impressive 60% percent from the field (mainly scoring inside), though his free throw shooting left a lot to be desired as he converted on less than 50% of his attempts from the charity stripe.

Either way, the addition of Cook was a pretty big pick-up for the Hakweyes, especially as Fran was able to go up against Florida (the other finalist for Cook, who made a visit earlier in the month) and bring the Missouri native to Iowa. Fran has done a solid job rebuilding the Hawkeyes, but Cook is the first four-star recruit (per Rivals) since 2012 when Mike Gesell and Adam Woodbury committed. Since then Iowa had one three-star commit in 2013, three three-star commits in 2014 and six three-star commits last season. The addition of Jones is a marquee acquisition and should be a step up from Ryan Kriener, who picked Iowa over predominantly mid-major programs.

Like Penn State, Iowa also jumped up in the recruiting rankings with the addition of Cook. After the addition late Wednesday night, the Hawkeyes are currently ranked as having the 20th best recruiting class in 2016 per 247Sports. That spot would actually put them sixth in the Big Ten (behind Michigan State, Penn State, Minnesota, Maryland and Michigan), showing how strong recruiting has been so far in the conference. With a 2015 class with a ton of options it looks like Iowa will have plenty of fresh faces over the next few years, with more than enough talent to spread around. The last several seasons Fran has spread playing time around and utilized a deep rotation with quite a few players being heavily featured, something that he should be able to continue doing thanks to his 2015 and current 2016 class.

Highlights of Cook can be seen below: