Harty: Chris Collins is smart to follow McCaffery’s lead
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Six years ago, the Iowa men’s basketball team was in the early stages of a stretch in which it lost 10 of 12 games to close the Todd Lickliter coaching era.
The program was in shambles on and off the court.
In addition to losing games at an alarming rate, players also were leaving the program at a disturbing rate, while attendance was dropping. It was a recipe for dysfunction.
Now turn the clock back to today and the difference between where the Iowa program is now under head coach Fran McCaffery compared to 2010 is incredible.
It also is inspiration for third-year Northwestern coach Chris Collins, whose team lost to third-ranked Iowa 85-71 before a sellout crowd of 15,400 on Sunday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Collins is trying to do with the Wildcats what McCaffery already has accomplished with the Hawkeyes, who improved to 17-4 overall and 8-1 in the Big Ten with Sunday’s victory.
“Fran is doing a great job with them,” Collins said after Sunday’s game. “They’re very well coached. You can tell they have all juniors and seniors out there. They play well off of each other. They’ve grown up together.
“And really, I’ve said it a lot; that’s kind of what we’re striving for with our program. We have a lot of freshman and sophomores out there that have to learn. They’ve got to figure it out. And you learn from playing against teams like this.”
It wasn’t that long ago when Iowa was the team being humbled and still trying to figure things out against better competition.
Success didn’t happen immediately for McCaffery as Iowa finished 11-20 in his first season as head coach. That was only one more victory than Lickliter had in the previous season, which led to him getting fired after just three years on the job.
Iowa increased its victory total to 18 games in McCaffery’s second season and 25 games in his third season, while also competing in the National Invitation Tournament in both seasons.
The Hawkeyes then played in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments in seasons four and five under McCaffery and are poised to make a third consecutive trip to the dance this season.
Northwestern, on the other hand, has lost four games in a row, including the last three by double figures.
“Hopefully, by the time we get to have all juniors and seniors, we can have a team like they do,” Collins said of Iowa, which has four seniors and junior in the starting lineup. “They’re a very good basketball team and are certainly going to make major noise the rest of the season.”
Iowa has improved in each of McCaffery’s six seasons as head coach. Each of his teams have accomplished more than the previous team, which ultimately leads to stability.
Even though Iowa performed sluggishly at times on Sunday, it still defeated a Big Ten opponent by double figures for the seventh time in nine conference games this season.
McCaffery was asked after Sunday’s victory what his team’s story is halfway through the Big Ten schedule.
“That’s a good question, I guess, because I never really stop to think of it that way,” McCaffery said. “I don’t look at it like, `okay, we’re at the halfway point.’
“We’re just on a journey that is going to present different challenges every day. And your ability to professionally handle that is going to determine your success. You don’t want to look back. You don’t want to look too far ahead. You’ve got to be honest with yourself and hold each other accountable.”
McCaffery has stressed the importance of living in the moment since taking over at Iowa. He doesn’t get too high after victories or too low after defeats. He just moves on to the next challenge regardless of the circumstance.
Collins would be wise to follow McCaffery’s lead because Iowa is the fourth Division I program that McCaffery has rebuilt. He also resurrected programs at Lehigh, North Carolina-Greensboro and Siena before coming to Iowa.
McCaffery has suffered his share of recruiting setbacks, with none probably more frustrating than losing star point guard Tyler Ulis to Kentucky. But McCaffery also has shown a knack for identifying hidden gems like former Iowa forward Aaron White, who made first-team all-Big Ten as a senior last season after being lightly recruited.
McCaffery didn’t take any shortcuts in building the Iowa program. He took his lumps along the way, but now it’s paying off with a veteran squad that has exceeded expectations.
“This team I think continues to do a couple things’ they share the ball and they believe in each other,” McCaffery said. “We can survive a player or two not having a great game because other guys pick them up.
“We’re consistently getting great play off the bench, which in this league is absolutely critical. You can’t do it with just five or six guys. You just can’t.”
Iowa was in the unusual position of having to bounce back from a loss on Sunday. The Hawkeyes lost to Maryland 74-68 in their previous game on Thursday in College Park, Md. The loss ended a nine-game winning streak for the Hawkeyes.
Northwestern was in the wrong place at the wrong time with having to face Iowa on Sunday. It maybe took Iowa longer than expected to show its superiority, but that is ultimately what happened.
Iowa used a 14-0 scoring run to take the lead in the first half, which it never relinquished. What made the run more impressive is that senior forward Jarrod Uthoff, who leads Iowa with an 18.6 per-game scoring average, was on the bench for most of it.
“There was a certain point in time where we just locked up defensively and we had several stops in a row,” Uthoff said. “And that really fueled our offense and got us going.”
As for Collins, he just has to keep plugging away, much like McCaffery did during the early stages of his rebuilding job.
The situation at Northwestern is different than Iowa because the Wildcats never have competed in the NCAA Tournament, whereas Iowa has made 24 NCAA Tournament appearances.
Iowa not only has an edge in talent over Northwestern, but also in tradition. The Iowa players have more confidence, which comes from winning and from having more experience.
“Now what you see is all juniors and seniors that believe they’re good,” Collins said of Iowa, which faces Penn State on Wednesday at home. “They have a swagger to them. Not in a bad way. They take the floor knowing that they’re a real good team.”
Iowa’s ascent under McCaffery shows what a difference six years and a new head coach can make.