	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

UNIVERSITY OF IOWA BASKETBALL MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 5, 2019

Fran McCaffery

Iowa City, Iowa

Q. What do you remember about that last trip to the Kohl Center, kind of an exciting finish there?
FRAN McCAFFERY: Kind of similar to a lot of the games we've had over there. They've been good games, very competitive atmosphere, really good. There's always some Hawk fans over there. We just kind of hung in and ran a good play, Pete missed a shot, Cordell made a terrific play on the offensive rebound, found Jordan right away and hit the big shot. That was just a lot of good court awareness by our guys in that situation.

Q. Just your general thoughts on the Rutgers game and what you saw --
FRAN McCAFFERY: We obviously didn't play well, didn't shoot it well. I think that impacted a lot of things that happened. They shot it well, we didn't. Seemed like we were fighting, fighting, fighting and couldn't get anything going. We couldn't make any shots. Nicolas obviously stepped up and hit a couple and so did Jordan. Just got to play better.

Q. You guys are under 30 percent from three in the last four games. Something you see there --
FRAN McCAFFERY: No, I think we're taking good shots and the right people are shooting them. We were shooting better for a while and then we haven't been. You just get your shots up in practice and keep moving the ball. Just make sure you're shooting open shots and not contested shots. If you're shooting contested threes you're not going to make them. But I thought our looks were pretty good, and just encouraging the guys to continue to shoot them. I think we had the right guys shooting them.

Q. The last couple of games, teams that aren't great offensive teams have shot it really well against you, and you've had some individuals really break out who don't normally shoot that well. What do you make of that?
FRAN McCAFFERY: I think in those cases they were open, so you've got to do a better job of making sure they're not open. I don't care who they are. Okay, maybe you look at a guy's shooting percentage and you say he's a driver, you play him as a driver and he hits some threes, that's unfortunate, and that happens sometimes. But for the most part, you want to be a little bit closer to him.

Q. Do you make the trip to Wisconsin?
FRAN McCAFFERY: Yeah.

Q. When you're not coaching the game itself, how much involvement do you have?
FRAN McCAFFERY: Everything that you would normally, except for being at the game. Film session, practice, any meetings, pregame meal, meeting before the pregame meal, that kind of stuff.

Q. You won't be at the arena, though, right?
FRAN McCAFFERY: No. No. I don't know, I guess maybe I could be, but there's certain -- like you can't go in the locker room, you can't be here, you can't -- so it doesn't really pay to go to the arena. The best bet is to just let them go and then watch it somewhere else.

Q. You can sit with the media?
FRAN McCAFFERY: I don't think you'd want to sit with me. Maybe you would. It might be fun. (laughter)

Q. What's it like to watch your team play a game on TV?
FRAN McCAFFERY: What you do is you're sort of coaching the game anyway, and like this is what I would do, and I thought, a lot of the things that I was thinking to myself, I thought our staff did. Obviously when things weren't going well, you've got to change the offense, change the defense, change personnel, try to find a combination that works, whether it be personnel or a package offensively, things like that. So I thought they kept pushing different buttons, and that's all you can do in a situation like that when you get off to a bad start offensively and they're hitting. You get behind, and we just kind of hung in, we hung in, things didn't really go well, but we hung in there. I thought when J-Bo made the three at the end of the half, that was a good sign. You come in under 10, we'll play better in the second half.

They scored the first five of the second half. That's not good, but then we came back again. So I think we showed some fight. I'm just thinking in my head, what would I be doing in this situation, and I thought those guys did about as good a job as you could do.

Q. What has Kirk's role been in the program over nine years? How would you describe his roles or his -- I don't want to say impact, it's clichÃ©.
FRAN McCAFFERY: He's really been tremendous in so many different ways. I don't know how well you guys know him, but if you know him, he's just really a quality person with a tremendous background. You think of who he's worked for, he worked with Lute when he was here and then worked with Lon Kruger and obviously been a successful head coach in his own right, and an Iowa guy. So he's been a big help to me in the nine years we've been together.

But he's got a great way about him. The players respond to him. He does a lot of film work with the team and with players individually. He's great with skill development. I think he's a really good recruiter. I think sometimes people don't look at him that way, but he's very good. He's very diligent.

And that's kind of how I -- I've said this to you before, but it's kind of how I utilize my staff. Sometimes you see a guy like him and you say he's the X's and O's guy, and that guy is the recruiter and that guy is the administrative guy. I just don't do it that way. I want every one of my guys to be really good at every facet of this profession, and he is.

Q. Is it a factor that it's going to be a tough environment? Do you bring that up to your guys? Is that going to be a factor of the game, the way the energy in the building or anything like that?
FRAN McCAFFERY: You would expect the energy to be high, but it's typically high anyway over there.

Q. The last five or six games I would say you guys have been either ranked or favored or in a position where people are gunning for you, which is kind of the reverse of last year, for example. Have your guys learned some stuff in the last --
FRAN McCAFFERY: I hope so. I think that's a legitimate question. That's been a little different. It's not something we talk about or point out. They're aware of it. You can look it up on your phone if you want to, so it's a different world that way, whether you're paying attention or not. So you just hope that they're focused on what's the game plan for Wisconsin because it's different than what it was for Rutgers and the game before that and the game before that.

Q. Do teams tend to play better on defense when they're playing good on offense?
FRAN McCAFFERY: Yes, I would say -- I think that's a fair point. It shouldn't be. It should be the reverse. But I think it kind of works that way sometimes.

Q. Why do you think that is?
FRAN McCAFFERY: I think energy level. You get -- you sort of feed off the energy level offensively when you're cooking on offense. It just carries over to everything else that you do, whether it be cuts and movement on offense or sprinting in transition on offense or sprinting back and being up toward the ball, being over toward the ball, pressuring the ball on defense. Your energy level is just better when your offense is clicking.

Q. Besides the wins, what would you like to see out of your team this week going into the Big Ten Tournament? What do you want to see them develop?
FRAN McCAFFERY: All I want to see is more consistent play. You look at Saturday and say, boy, it wasn't very good. If you watch the tape, there were some really good things that happened in that game, and there were some things that didn't go so well, and you want to be more consistent. You want to be better in all facets of the game, and that's what we're trying to accomplish in the next one.

Q. Is that the hardest thing, consistency?
FRAN McCAFFERY: I think day in and day out. So it's consistency collectively but also individually because if each individual is performing at a consistent level, then your team will. Sometimes guys are missing shots and a few mistakes and sort of uncharacteristic mistakes maybe. And then guys start pressing a little bit.

So you've got to stay positive with them when that's happening as coaches. Just continue to hold them accountable but stay positive and hope that they stay together and kind of help each other through it while it's happening to them.

Q. Are you guys pretty healthy right now?
FRAN McCAFFERY: Pretty much. At this time of the year you've got nicks and bruises but nothing major.

Q. Other coaches have talked about strategy with Ethan Happ, he's not a good foul shooter. Some teams are playing him in that regard.
FRAN McCAFFERY: Well, they're taking him out, too, so it's a little bit different. I wouldn't say for Ethan Happ. Every game there's strategy such as that, that goes into it based on percentages, whether it be three-point shooting percentages, free throw percentages, so yeah, that's always part of the game plan.

Q. Have you ever done anything like what -- I think Richard Pitino did it earlier this year where he just started fouling Happ?
FRAN McCAFFERY: It's not something you do a lot, but I've done it, and it can be part of our strategy. I don't know. I haven't really thought about that. You've got to recognize that he's one of the better players in our league, and he's going to have the ball a lot, so you have the opportunity to foul him if you want to. So we'll see what's the situation, are you up one, down one, down six, how much time, what are the circumstances, do you think you have him in a good position, or do you just go ahead and whack him? There's a lot of differing factors that would enter into that.

Q. The number of assists Happ has and for that matter the number that Tyler Cook has, is this symptomatic of basketball changing, or are these guys outliers?
FRAN McCAFFERY: They're getting double teamed, so they're just finding people because they get double teamed all the time. Happ is a little different because he grew up as a guard and then just grew. Tyler was always a power forward and has really had to grow in that capacity. He was always an unselfish person, but he's seen double-teams probably throughout the last couple years in high school and in college, so he's developed an ability to handle that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297