A version of this story originally appeared in the Feb. 8, 2016, issue of Sports Illustrated. Subscribe to the magazine here.
Jarrod Uthoff is many things—rebounder, three-point marksman, shot swatter, cord-cutter, devoted angler—but hopeless romantic is not one of them. Consider this account of how he asked his girlfriend of four years, Jessie Jordan, to marry him last August. "Took a walk down by the river," Uthoff says, "and I proposed to her."
The success of the Hawkeyes—who have surged to No. 5 after being unranked in the preseason—may come as a surprise.