A big week for Iowa football has also delivered some great news for Hawkeye basketball as five-star Iowa native Xavier Foster is set to officially visit Iowa. The Hawkeyes are taking advantage of a new rule regarding official visits. Starting this season, players can have up to 15 official visits and they are allowed to start taking them during their junior year. In the past, players haven't been allowed to take their visits until their senior year of high school, so this is a dramatic change in NCAA policy.

A source told HawkeyeInsider that Foster is set to visit Iowa the weekend of September 7-8. That is also the week of the Iowa State football game. This is a significant weekend for Iowa basketball already as it hosts a major 2019 three-star point guard recruiting target in Joe Toussaint. It's also the weekend that Iowa will officially host four-star forward Pat McCaffery and five-star power forward Trayce Jackson-Davis. It's safe to say that's not bad for a team coming off of a 4-14 conference record.

This is the first official visit that Foster will take and it's also the first junior official visit Iowa has ever hosted. Some people might be thinking it's too early to host Foster for an official visit because he'll take so many others. But people forget the second part about this rule. Players are allowed to take more than one official visit to the same school if more than one calendar year passes. When Foster takes his official visit for Sept. 7-8, he'll be allowed to take another official visit to Iowa on Sept 7-8 2019.

The fact that Foster is taking an official this early shows that Iowa is going to be a contender for his services and credit McCaffery and the coaching staff for extending an invitation for an official this early. It's clear that Foster remains a priority recruit for this staff.

Foster has had a massive summer and continues to garner up offers. Kansas was the first blue-blood to offer Foster and they'll be in it until the end for his services. Foster has now gathered offers from Baylor, Creighton, Illinois, Iowa, Iowa State, Kansas, Missouri, Rutgers, Texas A&M, UCLA, and USC. He also has heard from Duke, North Carolina, and Kentucky.

There's been a certain amount of pressure that has been added to McCaffery and staff because they could not close the deal with fellow in-state five-star point guard D.J. Carton. It's clear that McCaffery and company are doing all they can to convince the five-star big man to stay in Iowa. It's also fair to give Iowa their props for finding a way to secure two five-star recruits to officially visit Iowa the year after they go 4-14 in conference. The battle for Foster is far from over, but the Hawkeyes are doing everything they can to win over Foster.