By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Nearly two decades have passed since Tom Davis coached the Iowa men’s basketball team, but it sort of feels like he is back again.

And you can thank Fran McCaffery for that.

He and Davis have little in common with regard to their personalities, but they have much in common with regard to their success as the Iowa men’s basketball coach and with their style of play.

McCaffery enters his eighth season as the Iowa coach with a deep and talented squad that seems capable of making the NCAA Tournament with a few breaks here and there. He introduced his squad to the press on Monday as Iowa held its annual media day event at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“I think you want expectations,” McCaffery said. “You want your fans to be excited about your team. It's not something that ever concerns me. It's not something I've ever shied away from, and I don't get up here and try to present a doom and gloom so that if we do win games then we create the perception that we somehow overachieved.

“I have an expectation for that team. I think they have an expectation for themselves, and I'm excited about it.

Iowa isn’t considered one of the top contenders to win the Big Ten regular-season title. But it hardly is a bottom feeder, either, as was usually the case under McCaffery’s predecessor, Todd Lickliter.

Those gloomy days are long gone thanks to McCaffery’s rebuilding job, which includes leading Iowa to the NCAA Tournament in three of the last four seasons and to six consecutive postseason tournaments.

McCaffery likes to push the pace on offense and substitute frequently because he relies on depth to play at a faster pace and to offset fatigue.

Sound familiar?

Davis was the same way.

Some fans grew impatient with Davis near the end of his 13-year run in 1999 because Iowa rarely advanced past the second round of the NCAA Tournament under his watch.

The naysayers expected more and were clamoring for change, and so was former Iowa Athletic Director Bob Bowlsby, who refused to give Davis a contract extension.

Steve Alford was considered a young, rising star in the coaching profession when he was hired to replace Davis. And Alford certainly had his moments as the Iowa coach, leading the Hawkeyes to two Big Ten Tournament titles in eight seasons as head coach.

But his time in Iowa City was rocked by scandal and by fan apathy.

Alford then fled to New Mexico to be its head coach and was replaced by Lickliter in 2007.

Lickliter only lasted three seasons before he was fired. The program had sunk to near the bottom of the conference, players were transferring at a disturbing rate and Carver-Hawkeye Arena was more than half empty for most games.

“During the Lickliter era, I remember someone saying, boy what I’d give for a Tom Davis, 20-win, second-round of the NCAA Tournament,” said veteran reporter Rick Brown on Monday. “Which everyone would grumble about, oh, here we go, second-round of the tournament, twenty wins. So what.

“And then when Lickliter was here, it was like, oh, boy, I’d kill for that. Well, they got it back.”

Brown has covered the Iowa men’s basketball program for more than four decades, with most of those years spent as a reporter for the Des Moines Register.

He also sees many similarities between the Davis era and the current situation under McCaffery.

“The whole approach to the game, the depth, the fast-break, and they recruit the same type of players,” Brown said of the similarities between Davis and McCaffery. “Guys who can run the floor. Big guys who can run. That’s the biggest thing to me. Big guys who can run is very similar.”

The expectations for the current Iowa team are similar to the expectations that accompanied most of Davis’ teams at Iowa.

Davis led Iowa to the NCAA Tournament in nine of his 13 seasons. His 1987 squad advanced to the Elite Eight, while his final team made the Sweet 16 in 1999 with Davis as a lame duck coach.

Iowa hasn’t advanced past the second round of the NCAA Tournament since then. So that’s the next challenge for McCaffery.

But in fairness to McCaffery, the program was in far worse shape when he was hired compared to when Davis took over for star recruiter George Raveling in 1986.

The players on the current team are on a mission to make it back to the NCAA Tournament after coming so close a year ago.

Iowa was one of four teams on the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee’s first-four-out list, which earned it a No. 1 seed in the National Invitation Tournament.

But it also broke a string of three consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.

“As the season moves forward, we want to use that as kind of a stepping stone for us, knowing that we don’t want to be in that tournament, even though it’s real good tournament,” point guard Jordan Bohannon said of the NIT. “We want to keep fighting every day; knowing that we belong in the NCAA Tournament, and knowing that we have a chance to do something real special.”

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Bohannon is one of four returning starters from a team that finished 19-15 last season, including 9-9 in the conference. He and 6-foot-9 forward Tyler Cook both made the Big Ten All-Freshmen team last season.

Iowa also adds two 6-11 freshmen frontline players in Luka Garza and Jack Nunge. Garza led Iowa in scoring and rebounding during the four-game European trip in August, while Nunge is versatile enough to play on the perimeter.

“Both of them are tremendous players,” McCaffery said. “They're incredibly versatile. They come ready. It's not like we have to develop them.”

One of the biggest challenges for the current team is replacing shooting guard Peter Jok, who led the Big Ten in scoring last season.

But that goes with the territory because star players come and go all the time.

Davis dealt with the same thing while at Iowa, but his teams developed a level of consistency that is now being match by McCaffery’s teams.

The challenge for McCaffery is to surpass what Davis accomplished.

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