Harty: Losing two players in 24 hours confusing, but not reason to panic
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Iowa basketball fans have reason to be confused in the wake of two players leaving the program on consecutive days.
Brandon Hutton and Andrew Fleming both will transfer after the spring semester in search of more playing time at a different school.
They both stand 6-foot-5 and they both play on the wing, small forward in the case of Hutton, while Fleming is a shooting guard.
What’s confusing is that Iowa loses four starters, and possibly five, from the team whose season just ended in the second round of the NCAA Tournament less than two week ago.
There would seem to be an abundance of playing time available next season, even if 6-6 small forward/shooting guard Peter Jok returns for his senior season.
And yet, Hutton and Fleming both like their chances elsewhere.
It’s hard to know if that says more about Hutton and Fleming or about the situation at Iowa.
Player defections have been few and far between in six seasons under head coach Fran McCaffery until now.
One can be considered an isolated incident, but two makes you wonder about a pattern, especially when they happen on back-to-back days.
The timing might simply be a case in which both players met recently with McCaffery to learn where they stand as part of the post-season evaluation process and neither liked what they heard.
That kind of stuff happens all the time in big-time college sports. A head coach only has so much playing time to pass around.
Fleming would’ve played more this season if he had earned McCaffery’s trust in practice. But he didn’t.
The same with Hutton, who apparently wasn’t ready just from the fact McCaffery chose to redshirt him.
McCaffery demands a lot from his players, and sometimes, he lashes out at them. But he never seems to hold grudges or use playing time as a way to send a message.
A player should know exactly where he stands with McCaffery.
Fleming’s situation seemed fluid almost from the beginning. It was less than a month into the season when Fleming told reporters that he and McCaffery had just met to discuss Fleming’s limited role on the team as if it were news.
This isn’t to say that McCaffery is beyond criticism.
He believed in Fleming and Hutton enough to offer both of them scholarships, but neither proved to be a good fit.
So in less than a year, Iowa has lost two of its five freshmen.
That hardly qualifies as a crisis, but still doesn’t look good, especially coming off a season in which Iowa lost six of its last eight games.
Iowa fans should know a crisis when they see one after having endured three disastrous seasons under Todd Lickliter from 2007 to 2010.
Players defected under Lickliter at a disturbing rate. They left mostly because they were miserable, caused by losing and by having no relationship with their head coach. It wasn’t just about playing time under Lickliter because most of the players who bolted under his watch already had playing time.
This could prove to be a blessing for McCaffery if he can cash in on the two available scholarships. One of the scholarships likely will be given to 6-7 sophomore-to-be forward Nicholas Baer and deservedly so. He showed enough skill and grit this past season to be worthy of a scholarship.
Fleming and Hutton might not see any playing time at Iowa, but there is for a player who can create his own shot off the dribble, play both guard positions and defend.
At the Big Ten level, that’s really not asking for a lot.