By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Connor McCaffery’s freshman season with the Iowa men's basketball team took a while to finally get started, but could end quickly.

Iowa coach Fran McCaffery, who is Connor’s father, said Thursday on a teleconference that his son still is struggling with his recovery from mononucleosis.

A decision on whether Connor McCaffery, a 6-foot-5 freshman guard, takes a redshirt this season will be made after Friday’s game against Colorado in Sioux Falls, S.D.

“He’s capable of giving us a few minutes, but he’s not coming around like we hoped,” Fran McCaffery said. “Like I’ve said, he had a really bad case and the conditioning is not coming quickly at all, unfortunately.”

Connor McCaffery can play in one more game and still be eligible to redshirt under NCAA rules.

“That’s up to the doctors, but yes, that’s true,” Fran McCaffery said of the option of redshirting. “After this game, we’ll kind of see where that is and let the doctors decide where we go from here.”

Connor McCaffery has appeared in the last three games, all of which were victories, after missing the first 10 regular-season games. He played 15 minutes and had two assists in Tuesday’s 92-64 victory over Southern Utah at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

It was thought that Connor McCaffery would provide some much-needed help in the backcourt, where the departure of former backup point guard Christian Williams and not having a true point guard have created problems this season. Williams announced in late October that he would transfer from Iowa after the first semester and is now headed to Indiana State.  

So while Connor McCaffery could play against Colorado on Friday, the status of junior forward Ahmad Wagner and junior guard Brady Ellingson still is uncertain. Wagner and Ellingson both rolled their ankles in the first half of the Southern Utah game and didn’t return.

Fran McCaffery said their status was day-to-day and that he would know more after the team held practice in Sioux Falls later on Thursday.