Tony Perkins keeps getting better, to the great delight of the Hawkeyes

IOWA CITY — It was four years ago, and the COVID-19 pandemic had just begun.

Jack Keefer, the boys’ basketball coach at Lawrence North High in Indianapolis and second-winningest coach in Indiana prep history, was at home with his team’s season prematurely halted instead of coaching it to what he believed could be a state-championship run. I was at home on the other end of the phone, asking Keefer about his top player, Iowa signee Tony Perkins.

“He performed unbelievably well in big games,” Keefer said. “He definitely was the leader of this team.”

Perkins would be second in Indiana’s Mr. Basketball voting to Anthony Leal of Bloomington, but Keefer said “(Perkins) is the most well-rounded of all.”

Keefer coached three future Top 10 NBA draft picks during his 865-win career. He wasn’t just pumping up one of his guys when he discussed Perkins.

“You’ll like him,” Keefer said.

Four years later, the coach was proved correct. Perkins is finishing his senior season at Iowa and is playing magnificent ball. The point guard’s 20-point, 7-rebound effort led the Hawkeyes in their 79-77 win over Ohio State Friday night.

When Iowa gave up six straight points to fall behind 54-51 midway through the second half, Perkins scored five points in 34 seconds to start an 8-0 Iowa run. His team never trailed again.

It was the fifth-straight game in which Perkins reached 20 points. It’s a feat Luka Garza and Keegan Murray reached and surpassed in recent years, but the last Iowa guard to do it was Fred Brown in 1971. Matt Gatens was four points short of doing it in 2012, and Adam Haluska scored 20-plus seven times in an 8-game stretch in 2006.

Perkins is his team’s leader in points, assists and steals, is second in blocked shots, and third in offensive rebounds. He is 6-foot-4.

Beyond the numbers, Perkins always comes to play hard and win.

“His game continues to mature,” said Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery. “When he first got here, he was a junkyard dog. That’s what we loved about him. That’s why we recruited him. A fearless guy.

“I think what you’re seeing now is a confident guy who knows what we want, who knows what we have to do to lead this team. His decision-making is what you want from your leader, your point guard, your senior. That settles everybody else down.”

After Iowa’s loss to Auburn in the NCAA tournament in Birmingham, Ala., last March, I asked Perkins if he was coming back to Iowa for his senior season. It’s something you have to do now because you don’t know who will transfer so you try to see if the replies are definitive. Sometimes, they aren’t.

Perkins said then and there that not only was he returning, but “I want to be the best guard in Iowa history.”

That was never going to happen when his 12.3-point average as a junior was easily the best in his career. But it was a mindset a coach, teammate or fan would want to hear.

Perkins is averaging 15.7 points this season, but more importantly and telling, 18.6 in Big Ten games.

“He’s playing at definitely an All-Big Ten level,” said junior teammate Payton Sandfort. “He’s my favorite point guard in the league right now.”

“He’s one of the elite guards not only in the league,” senior forward Patrick McCaffery said, “but in America. I’m glad he’s my teammate.”

Perkins doesn’t seem to take much pleasure in talking about himself with reporters. What he clearly enjoys is winning. Everyone takes losses hard to degrees, but the pain of it always shows in his face.

Iowa is 5-6 in the Big Ten and 13-9 overall and has serious work to do to approach the NCAA tournament bubble. But what you want and need in February is a senior junkyard dog with skills who wants to take you there.

“He’s kind of becoming a vocal leader,” Sandfort said. “I think that’s something he’s never really had to do or something he’s really comfortable with. But he’s starting to do that at the end of games, which is crucial.”

Before Friday’s game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena Perkins was honored for recently passing the 1,000-point career mark. The applause from the fans was loud and warm. They know what they’ve seen and are continuing to see from him.

Two years ago as a sophomore, Perkins played superbly in the semifinal and final of the Big Ten tournament in his Indianapolis hometown. The opponents were Indiana and Purdue. Iowa beat both.

Keefer said Perkins was the best prep player in Indiana that year. The people there and in Iowa now know he was right.

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