Iowa men’s basketball has chance to be special if it can handle global pandemic
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Hayden Fry had yet to coach in a game for the Iowa football team, and the Rockford Files still was airing in prime time the last time the Iowa men’s basketball team won the Big Ten regular-season title in 1978-79.
It also has been 40 years since Iowa advanced to the NCAA Final Four, and more than 20 years since Iowa made it to the Sweet 16.
The Iowa program is starving for some postseason magic, and right when it seems as if all the necessary pieces are in place, including the preseason favorite for national player of the year in senior center Luka Garza, a global pandemic has cast a wave of uncertainty over the sport.
Iowa coach Fran McCaffery is optimistic that a season will happen, and it could have as many as 27 games, but McCaffery didn’t provide many other specific details during a zoom conference with the media on Tuesday.
He downplayed the bubble theory, saying that college is different than the NBA where playing in a bubble has worked for the most part. And he said the nonconference schedule still is a work in progress.
McCaffery stressed the importance of being safe and responsible as his team prepares to navigate through uncharted territory, beginning with the start of preseason practice next week.
These are uncertain and fluid times in which the circumstances can change in a hurry.
The COVID-19 pandemic has become such a focus for everybody, and the players and coaches have to spend so much time and energy just trying to stay safe to where the pressure of meeting high expectations becomes almost a sidebar, or maybe even an afterthought.
Or, at least it seems that way.
McCaffery was asked if he saw it that way.
“It makes perfect sense, and I think it’s as legitimate question,” McCaffery said. “I still think the players are aware of expectations. I don’t think that will change. And I think when you look at expectations from the outside, I look at is more as, okay, what does our team expect of themselves? What do they expect from themselves individually and collectively?
“And that won’t change regardless of what the media would say, or a particular magazine would say, or a sports commentator might say.”
Proof of the uncertain times is that Athlon Sports has decided not to publish its annual college basketball preseason magazine due to the uncertainty with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Even with five true freshmen on the roster, McCaffery still has what could be described as a veteran squad.
Garza is a senior, while guard Jordan Bohannon is a fifth-year senior. Combo guard Connor McCaffery is a fourth-year junior, while shooting guard C.J. Fredrick is a third-year sophomore.
Power forward Jack Nunge is also a fourth-year junior and close to being healthy after having suffered a season-ending knee injury in the fifth game last season.
It is reasonable to think that having veteran leadership would help Iowa as it grinds through a season filled with potential obstacles and distractions.
This season will be like no other season due to the uncertainty with the virus, and the players and coaches will have to make sacrifices that they couldn’t even have imagined before the virus created a new normal.
“When you go week to week, or even game to game, who do you have?” McCaffery said of available personnel. “Who’s available?
“Assuming everyone’s available, alright, let’s look at the veteran clubs. Maybe they’re better equipped to handle what would in a normal year be an incredible amount of distractions. And there are. You really have to be locked in as a group. You have to be locked in individually. You have to be incredibly professional.”
Coaches always stress the importance of putting the team first, but even more so now under the unusual circumstances.
“There can’t be any selfishness on behalf of any coach or player,” McCaffery said. “And it has to be an incredible amount of team unity to accomplish a goal that we all say we want to accomplish.
“So I like the idea that we have a veteran club. I think with the circumstances that we would be facing like everyone else, experience would be maybe the ultimate thing that you’d want.”
But then McCaffery issued a warning.
“You could lose three veteran guys in one week, or maybe you lose one veteran guy for each game” McCaffery said. “So now you’re dealing with a situation where maybe it’s better to be the deepest team because maybe the best ability is availability.
In a normal year, McCaffery would likely redshirt at least one or maybe two of the five freshmen on the squad.
However, due to the uncertainty with the virus, McCaffery said he might have to rely on all of his players to make it through the season.
McCaffery confirmed that multiple players on the team had tested positive for the coronavirus, but he declined to say how many players tested positive. McCaffery said all the players are now doing fine and he feels good with where they are as a team.
“Some were sicker than others,” McCaffery said. “We experienced it all. We had two situations where they tested positive and they had no symptoms at all and they felt great. And others where it was taste and smell and some were sick as you would expect.
“And that’s the weird thing about this. It affected people differently and some recovered quicker than others.”
McCaffery sympathized with his five freshmen, hoping things could be more normal for them. He singled out freshman center Josh Ogundele for how he has persevered through tough times, but without being specific.
“What Josh Ogundele has been through has really been difficult to watch,” McCaffery said. “But I really appreciate him. He’s doing the best he can through this whole thing.
“The other four were here earlier, and I just kept thinking, boy, I wish this could be more normal for them. They moved into a dorm that was empty.”