By Pat Harty

IOWA CIYY, Iowa – Without Luka Garza, Joe Wieskamp and Jack Nunge, it was reasonable to assume that the Iowa men’s basketball team would struggle to rebound at times this season.

But to the extent it has struggled on the boards so far this season is unacceptable and perhaps the biggest reason why Iowa has lost three games in a row after starting the season with seven consecutive wins.

“Well, obviously it’s been addressed,” Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said Tuesday. “It doesn’t take much to diagnose. You just look at the numbers, they’re right there in front of you. It’s not been good.”

The rebounding numbers in Iowa’s three losses to Purdue, Illinois and Iowa State are brutal and very telling.

The Cyclones had a 50-32 advantage on the boards in last Thursday’s 73-53 victory in Ames, including 28-10 in the first half.

Illinois more than doubled Iowa’s output on the boards (52-23) during an 87-83 victory on Dec. 6 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, while Purdue outrebounded Iowa 36-25 in a 77-70 victory on Dec. 3 in West Lafayette, Indiana.

Iowa will have had more than a week to fix its rebounding woes when it faces Utah State on Saturday in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and it starts with effort.

Coaches often say that rebounding is mostly effort and Fran McCaffery echoed that sentiment on Tuesday.

“There’s a little bit of technique involved, but it’s more effort than technique. I mean, like John Wooden always said — he told his guys never to box out; just go get the ball.

“Now, he had the best players, so maybe that was not a bad way to go, but at the same time I think boxing out is probably overrated because more teams shoot 30-plus threes in a game now, so the ball is bouncing all over the place. So, if you don’t get those long rebounds or those long loose balls and the 50/50 balls, that’s all reflected in your rebounding numbers.”

Fran McCaffery likes to push the pace on offense and that often starts with trying to initiate a fastbreak.

The problem with that approach is that players sometimes are pre-occupied with getting down the court and they neglect to rebound.

Senior guard Connor McCaffery, who is Fran McCaffery’s son, thinks the desire to play up tempo has caused a lack of focus with rebounding.

“I would say not at much as lack of effort, to a certain extent yes, but I think a lot of it is I feel people have different things on their mind,” Connor McCaffery said. “I think when you see some of the guards because a big focus of ours is transition, obviously, so the guards want to push it down the court. The guards are getting out a little earlier because in the past we had (Wieskamp) and we had Luka, we had Jack and they didn’t have to worry about it because we would get the rebound.

“But now we just had a small stretch where we weren’t and I think our guards have been trying to push it down the court a little and trying to get that break started, and they need to be back in there with us battling.”

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Few teams in the country have had to replace as much firepower and size from the previous season as Iowa had to this season.

The 6-foot-11 Garza, in addition to being the 2020-21 National Player of the Year, and Iowa’s all-time leading scorer, was also a force on the boards, as were the 6-6 Wieskamp and the 6-11 Nunge, who now plays for Xavier where he just recently grabbed 14 rebounds in a game.

“When it comes down to it, we’re not a huge team as it is,” Connor McCaffery said. “We lost Luka, and we lost Jack. But with that being said, we need to be better. But that’s not a secret. All of us know that. And that’s been a focus for the past few days in practice. And that’s something we’re going to take on as a challenge for every game moving forward. It’s going to be a huge focus as it should be.”

Asked if rebounding is something that he enjoys as a player, Connor McCaffery said:

“Yeah, that’s some of the dirty work. You get in there. But getting in there and mixing it up, there’s a toughness factor to it. There’s a grit and a fight that comes with it.”

Senior forward Filip Rebraca, who transferred to Iowa after playing three seasons at North Dakota, was brought in to help fill the void on the frontline. The 6-9 Rebraca is currently ranked second on the team in rebounding with a 6.2 per-game average.

Sophomore forward Keegan Murray leads Iowa in rebounding with a 7.9 per-game average.

“Coach mentioned that we need to get the ball first before we run,” Rebraca said. “We understand that we want to play fast, but it all starts with the rebounding. So, if we don’t get that, we don’t get to run fast.

“So, this has been a focus. We need to get it to run fast.”

The popularity of the 3-point shot has made rebounding even more challenging because it’s hard to know where the ball will bounce. Rebraca deals with that as a frontline player.

He might be in position to rebound, only to have the ball deflect off the rim to a player who is in the right spot, but not necessarily by design.

“For me as a big, I’d say it’s very frustrating because I’m doing my battle down low and I feel like longer shots and longer rebounds, when I’m down low there’s no way I can get to those longer ones,” Rebraca said. “So, that’s why it’s frustrating for me because I have no chance of getting it.

“But I trust in my teammates. We need to do a better job, myself included because I know at times where I missed a box out or I got outrebounded, or let a guy tip the ball out. We all mistakes. But we’re here to get better.”