How Did the 2013 Iowa Recruiting Class Pan Out?

As college basketball works through its offseason, it is interesting to take a step back and look how things have progressed for the various Big Ten schools. In our latest series, BTPowerhouse will look at the impact the 2013 recruiting classes had on each Big Ten program.

Today, we will look at the 2013 recruiting class for the Iowa Hawkeyes.

Background

In the 2013 class there was only one member and that one player was Peter Jok.

The Hawkeyes were coming off a 25-13 season, just missed out on the NCAA Tournament, which earned them a spot in the NIT where they made a run all the way to the championship before losing to Baylor.

Peter Jok stepped on campus the next year, ready to take the Hawkeyes to a NCAA Tournament and beyond.

Let's take a look at the career of Jok.

Peter Jok - Shooting Guard (3-star ESPN)

When Jok was an 8th grader, offers were starting to pile in, and before he even played a high school game, scouting services were referring to Jok as top-10 recruit nationally.

In his freshman year at Nike Camp in St. Louis, Jok tore his patellar tendon, and everything started to crumble.

While Jok struggled with the long term negative effects that come with his injury, many of the high-major programs who recruited him out of the gates started to pull their offers, but Iowa and Fran McCaffrey stayed involved, and Iowa City became home for Jok during his college years.

A 3-star recruit coming out of high school, Jok was the No. 1 prospect in the state of Iowa for his class and was the Iowa Mr. Basketball winner his senior year of high school.

Jok was merely known as just a shooter in his first year at Iowa. In his freshman season, Jok only averaged 4.4 points in 9.4 minutes per contest. While it's easy to look down on Jok after his minimal impact rookie season, one has to go back and remember Jok was playing behind upperclassmen like Roy Devyn Marble who is one of the best players to put on a Hawkeye uniform.

With the graduation of Marble, Jok began to see an increase in his minutes his sophomore season.

In his second year in Iowa City, Jok averaged 7.0 points in a little under 20 minutes per game and was a key contributor to his team's success that year which included their first win in the NCAA Tournament since 2001.

Although his first two seasons at Iowa weren't too special, his junior and senior season is when Jok started to leave his mark on the University of Iowa men's basketball program.

Throughout Jok's junior season, the Hawkeyes were in the conversation for national title contenders with their unbelievable hot start to the campaign. The team began to see a drop in their overall performance as the season progressed, but this was Jok's coming out party to the college basketball world.

While playing roughly a little under 28 minutes per game, Jok averaged 16.1 points per game and shot 40 percent from the three-point line, one of the best in the country during that year. Not only was Jok draining threes, but he also showed off his ability to take the ball to the basket and finish down low with his solid frame and length for a combo guard.

The Hawkeyes' season once again ended in the Round of 32 this time at the hands of eventual national champion Villanova, 87-68.

Now, with the graduation of guys like Jared Uthoff, Adam Woodbury, Mike Gessel, and Anthony Clemmons, Jok was going to have to do much of the heavy lifting for the Hawkeyes in the 2016-'17 season.

In his senior season, it's safe to say Jok put up video game numbers during various games throughout the year. While averaging 19.9 points in roughly 30 minutes per game, Jok scored 30 plus points on five different occasions including a 42 point performance against Memphis on November 26th.

Many expected the undergraduate heavy Iowa squad to dwindle and make no noise this year but Jok's consistency throughout the season was a big reason that this team defied the odds and put together a decent run which ended in a first round loss in the NIT.

Though Jok's career didn't end the way he probably wanted it to, it shows the vast improvements he's made during his limited time in Iowa City. From a role player who could only shoot the three, to a floor leader and an excellent all around player who can lead a team full of freshman and sophomores to a winning season which no one expected them to have.

Jok went undrafted in the 2017 NBA Draft but was picked up by the New Orleans Pelicans to play in the Summer League only to play inconsistent minutes throughout the league and never really found a rhythm.

Only time will tell if Jok can catch a break and find his way on an NBA roster. But, for now, and forever, Hawkeye fans will always have a special place in their heart for Peter Jok.