Thursday night, Payton Sandfort will take the court at Carver-Hawkeye Arena for one final time, as Iowa takes on Big Ten-leading Michigan State (7:00 PM CT, FS1).
The game will be Senior Day for Sandfort, but it comes at the end of a senior season that's seen things go sideways more often than not as the Hawkeyes have skidded to a 15-14 overall record and a 6-12 mark in Big Ten action.
This isn't what anyone -- not Sandfort, not his teammates, not the Iowa coaching staff, not the Iowa fanbase -- envisioned when he announced his decision last summer to return to Iowa City for his senior season.
"There's been a lot of really tough nights. It sucks," Sandfort said earlier this week. "This season, it hasn't been what I dreamed of. When I made the decision in May to come back to school, you have all these goals and these dreams, and you picture what it's gonna look like and things have gotten in the way of that."
2024-25 was going to be a year of ending on a high note, a season in which Sandfort built on his breakthrough junior campaign (16.4 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 2.7 apg on 44.6 FG%/37.9 3FG%/91.1 FT% shooting) and solidified his NBA Draft stock, while helping lead Iowa back to the NCAA Tournament after the Hawkeyes missed out on the Big Dance in 2023-24. Instead, injuries rocked Sandfort and the rest of the Iowa roster from the beginning of the season, the high-flying Hawkeye offense got more inconsistent, and the oft-maligned Hawkeye defense hit new lows in several blowout road losses.
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iowa.rivals.com
The game will be Senior Day for Sandfort, but it comes at the end of a senior season that's seen things go sideways more often than not as the Hawkeyes have skidded to a 15-14 overall record and a 6-12 mark in Big Ten action.
This isn't what anyone -- not Sandfort, not his teammates, not the Iowa coaching staff, not the Iowa fanbase -- envisioned when he announced his decision last summer to return to Iowa City for his senior season.
"There's been a lot of really tough nights. It sucks," Sandfort said earlier this week. "This season, it hasn't been what I dreamed of. When I made the decision in May to come back to school, you have all these goals and these dreams, and you picture what it's gonna look like and things have gotten in the way of that."
2024-25 was going to be a year of ending on a high note, a season in which Sandfort built on his breakthrough junior campaign (16.4 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 2.7 apg on 44.6 FG%/37.9 3FG%/91.1 FT% shooting) and solidified his NBA Draft stock, while helping lead Iowa back to the NCAA Tournament after the Hawkeyes missed out on the Big Dance in 2023-24. Instead, injuries rocked Sandfort and the rest of the Iowa roster from the beginning of the season, the high-flying Hawkeye offense got more inconsistent, and the oft-maligned Hawkeye defense hit new lows in several blowout road losses.
MORE HERE:
On Payton Sandfort, Senior Day, and the Season That Wasn't
Reflecting on the end of the Payton Sandfort era at Iowa and what he's meant to the Hawkeye program.
