While football season is in full swing, it doesn't mean we can't dabble in some basketball prep ahead of the first tip-off on November 3rd! Next up is another one of 3 returning starters: Cooper Koch!
#8 – Cooper Koch, F, 6'8" 228 lbs 3rd year; Peoria, IL; Metamora Township
2025-26 :37 games, 37 starts; 7.8 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 1.1 APG, 43.7% FG, 40.2% 3P, 83.3% FT, 28.4 MPG
A couple days after hitting on a holdover from Fran McCaffery, we hit the only other guy who's started his career at Iowa pre-McCollum in legacy forward, Cooper Koch.
Koch started every game this past season at power forward and finished with the second most minutes on the team. His ability to battle down low while forcing defenses to guard him at the 3 was instrumental to the Hawks on both sides of the court.
His season high 19 points came in the lone conference tournament win against Maryland, going 5/8 from deep. On the season, he had just 4 games where he made 4 or more 3 pointers.
Defensively, despite consistently guarding guys bigger than him, he fouled out only once and it was the final game of the season against Illinois.
With the complexion of the roster changing with a true center on the roster in Andrew McKeever, it adjusts a few different things for Koch. Primarily, does the mostly solid defense translate as he is more likely to guard smaller 3s than bigger 4s & 5s?
Offensively, with Bennett Stirtz, Tavion Banks, and Alvaro Folgueiras gone, Koch returns as top leading scorer from last year's team. Simply put, he's going to have to increase his shot volume something he mostly did as the season progressed. From February on, he hit double digits in 8 of 17 games after having just 5 in the first 3 months of the year. The other area he'll have to improve is diversifying his game as nearly 75% of his shots came from 3. Will he be able to score more off the bounce and find open guys as Ben McCollum's offense continues to build out.
For the Hawks to have an excellent season, it's going to be largely because guys who know what McCollum wants week to week & game to game step up from where they were last season. Given Koch's ability to fill it up, if he can become a #1 scorer for this team that will go a long way in getting back into the tournament.
