The college basketball season is into conference play. I’ll be doing a series introducing you to some of the college basketball players you need to know. Let's take a look at Luka Garza from Iowa.

Garza, who was a consensus All-American last year and Big Ten Player of the Year, is currently averaging 27.6 points per game along with 8.6 rebounds. He is a traditional big man, who is great at playing with his back to the basket and does a good job as the screener on pick and rolls. He combines this with a fantastic mid-range jumper making him a deadly offensive weapon. He has also significantly improved as a three-point shooter and free throw shooter from last season. His three-point shooting has gone from 35% to 48%, and his free throw shooting from 65% to 74%.

Garza is a favorite for the National Player of the Year award and is the main reason why Iowa is ranked 5th in the latest AP poll. According to Basketball-Reference, Garza leads the country in Player Efficiency Rating. (PER) is a stat that measures a player's positive contributions minus his negative contributions. Other stats that Garza is leading nationally is win shares which is an estimate of a player's wins contributed by his offense and defense.

Also, box plus-minus is an estimate of points per 100 possessions a player contributed. He is also first in Kenpom’s Player of the Year Standings and leads the country in Kenpom’s game MVP rankings. Garza’s comfortability driving, shooting, and posting up makes him an extremely versatile weapon that can score in a variety of different ways for this Iowa offense.

Iowa has a great offense, they currently boast the 2nd best offensive efficiency in college basketball. Their offensive strategy is to surround Garza with shooters. That strategy has helped give them the 17th highest field goal percentage in the country. What's holding Garza and this Iowa team back from being in the top tier of teams in college basketball, along with Gonzaga and Baylor, is their defense. Right now, Iowa is 71st in adjusted defensive efficacy.

As a team, they struggle to consistently stop opposing offenses. The Hawkeyes gave up 116.6 points per 100 possessions against Gonzaga and 132.6 against Minnesota. Those types of defensive performances aren’t good enough to beat the elite teams no matter how good their offense performs. 

When talking about Luka Garza’s NBA draft stock, he is currently the 44th player on ESPN’s big board. The reason his stock is a little bit lower than your normal National Player of the Year favorite is because of his defense. Garza struggles to defend in the pick and roll. He isn’t super quick laterally and because of his lack of foot speed, can’t switch on to guards when playing man-to-man defense against screens. He won’t be able to be a switch defender at the next level. He does a decent job protecting the rim, averaging 1.8 blocks per game, but he’s not a huge vertical threat and is gonna have to play drop coverage at the next level.

Overall, Garza is a great player. He is the runaway to win National Player of the Year and is a player you should keep your eye on heading into the end of the season.