FRAN UPDATES OGLESBY, JOK SITUATIONS

It's been a semi-eventful summer for Iowa's top two-guards, with both making appearances in the police blotter.  Peter Jok was arrested in April for drunken driving on his moped and then cited in July for driving under a suspended license.  Oglesby was arrested for public intoxication earlier this month.  After Jok's second infraction, McCaffery suspended him from all basketball-related activities "indefinitely."  No announcement of discipline for Oglesby was ever made public.  But now we know a bit more about where both guys stand in relation to the Iowa basketball team, thanks to the efforts of the ink-stained wretches at Monday's Chris Street Memorial Golf Tournament, who managed to get information about both situations out of Fran.

On Jok:

Iowa sophomore Peter Jok has atoned adequately for his off-season transgressions, and Coach Fran McCaffery will lift the shooting guard's indefinite suspension at a meeting on Tuesday.

"He'll start fresh from there," said McCaffery at the Chris Street Memorial Golf Tournament on Monday. "He'll be at the meeting. He'll be at workouts, and he's fulfilled his obligations that he needed to."

On Oglesby:

Another shooting guard, Josh Oglesby, was arrested for public intoxication on Aug. 16. His jury trial is set for Sept. 23. McCaffery said he has no plans to suspend Oglesby.

While those comments, passed on by the Gazette's Scott Dochterman, would seem to suggest that neither guy will be suspended for any games this fall (the Oglesby note is rather unambiguous), Rick Brown's story for Hawk Central on the matter is less clear, at least where Jok is concerned.

After being suspended from the team, Jok attended summer-school classes and participated in community service projects. McCaffery said Monday that he is not sure if Jok will be suspended from any games this season.

I don't think it would be a surprise if Jok missed a game or two at the start of the season, given that he did have two incidents in a short span of time this summer.  Frankly, unlike Ferentz and the football team, we don't have much of a track record to refer to when it comes to Fran's handling of off-court disciplinary matters with the basketball team -- there simply haven't been very many incidents for him to deal with during his tenure.  Iowa is currently scheduled to open the season with an exhibition against Northwood and two home games against yet-to-be-determined opponents for the 2K Sports Classic tournament; even if Jok has to miss one or more of those games, I don't think his absence will be felt too keenly in those games.

In any event, it sounds as though Jok and Oglesby are (more or less) back in Fran's good graces and will have every opportunity to be key contributors for Iowa this winter.  That's certainly good news, since Iowa's back court depth looked mighty shaky without them.

Fran also spoke about the three new additions to the Iowa team in 2014-15, JUCO Trey Dickerson and freshmen Brady Ellingson and Dom Uhl (SPOILER ALERT: He likes them all, but seems especially impressed with Dickerson's speed and Uhl's athleticism and versatility), engaged in a little spin control on Iowa's 2014-15 schedule ("only three of Iowa's current 11 non-conference opponents have an RPI higher than 200"), gave a vague update on 2015 recruiting (if the right guys say "yes," they'll use all five available scholarships, but otherwise they'll likely keep one open -- either for a transfer next spring or for a 2016 recruit), and noted that Kyle Denning has been put on scholarship for 2014-15.  Congratulations to Kyle Denning.