By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – My stand on Fran McCaffery’s status as the Iowa men’s basketball coach has pretty much stayed the same ever since his future became a hot topic this season.

I believe his body of work should have earned him a chance to coach the Hawkeyes for a 16th season.

But I also understand why Iowa Athletic Director Beth Goetz decided to move on without Fran McCaffery as head coach because there are certainly glaring problems within the Iowa men’s basketball structure and environment, most notably the growing apathy with fans.

Iowa barely averaged 5,000 fans for its 18 home games this season, meaning Carver-Hawkeye Arena was two-thirds empty for most of the home games.

The disconnect with fans has been festering for a while, and now with Iowa having failed to make the NCAA Tournament in back-to-back seasons, it’s a problem that has to be addressed immediately.

Goetz has decided that replacing Fran McCaffery is the best way to move forward as Iowa announced Friday afternoon that it would be making a leadership change.

“Fran McCaffery has been an integral part of our Hawkeye family for the past 15 years. He is a tremendous coach and teacher, and we are grateful for the positive impact he has made on the institution and the community,” Goetz said in a release. “We have a deep appreciation for his dedication to our student-athletes and his passion for the game that will have a lasting impact on our program.”

Fran McCaffery has made it abundantly clear that he has no plans to step down on his own.

He said after Thursday’s 106-94 loss to Illinois in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament that he expects Iowa to participate in the new College Basketball Crown tournament, which starts on March 31 in Las Vegas

“It’s going to happen,” Fran McCaffery said.

Or maybe not if the reports are true.

Iowa’s decision to let Fran McCaffery go will almost certainly have an impact on the Iowa roster moving forward.

The roster probably would changed even if Fran McCaffery were to stay due to not having enough NIL money to keep certain players.

Imagine the potential earning power that sophomore forward Owen Freeman and junior guard Josh Dix both could have in the NIL arena.

Fran McCaffery told the media after Thursday’s loss in Indianapolis that Iowa’s NIL has to climb to at least $6 million annually to have a fair chance at recruiting players.

Iowa men’s basketball currently raises about $1.1 to $1.5 million annually in NIL money, which ranks near the very bottom of the Big Ten Conference.

Fran McCaffery has lost multiple players in recruiting for one reason that doesn’t have anything to do with his coaching style, his recruiting style or the culture within his program.

He lost them because he didn’t have enough NIL money to close the deals.

Hiring a new head coach would help to generate more fan support, at least initially, and probably even help to raise more NIL money, because with change comes hope and excitement.

At some point, though, it’ll come down to winning and losing more than anything else.

If Iowa had finished 13-7 in the Big Ten this season instead of 7-13, Fran McCaffery would probably still be the Iowa head coach.

The season-ending injury to Owen Freeman in early February was a crushing blow for an Iowa team that already had questionable depth with Freeman healthy.

Fran McCaffery could certainly use injuries as a reason why this season didn’t meet expectations.

But is that a big enough reason to give him another season?

Goetz apparently felt that it wasn’t.

Fran McCaffery has led four different programs to the NCAA Tournament, and his ability to develop players ranks him up with the best in his business.

The way in which Luka Garza and the Murray twins developed under Fran McCaffery’s tutelage was nothing short of extraordinary.

He also has recruited good kids who have represented the university with class.

Iowa has made seven NCAA Tournament appearances under Fran McCaffery, finished in the Big Ten upper division in 11 of the last 13 seasons, and his 297 wins ranks first in program history.

Iowa also won the Big Ten Tournament in 2022.

What ultimately led to Fran McCaffery’s demise as head coach is Iowa’s lack of NCAA Tournament success, which includes no Sweet 16 appearances, and the growing disconnect with with fans.

Iowa’s loss to Illinois on Thursday showed both the positive and the negative side of Fran McCaffery’s coaching influence.

His team scored 94 points, made a bunch of threes and scored in both half-court sets and in transition. There were times when Iowa’s offense was beautiful thing to watch, and yet it still resulted in a double-digit loss because of the deficiencies on defense and on the boards.

Rarely has Iowa been a good defensive team under Fran McCaffery.

And when you play at such a fast pace on offense, as is the case with Iowa, it leads to more possessions on defense, and that often has led to trouble, the loss to Illinois the latest example.

West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries and Drake head coach Ben McCollum are the two names mentioned the most as possible replacements for Fran McCaffery.

DeVries and McCollum are both from Iowa and they both have had unprecedented success as the Drake head coach, though McCollum is in just his first year after having replaced DeVries.

It could be argued that hiring and firing head coaches in the biggest revenue-earning sports is the most important part of being an athletic director.

The decision to promote Jan Jensen to head coach for the Iowa women’s basketball team was basically a foregone conclusion that any athletic director would have made under the unique circumstances.

Fran McCaffery’s situation, on the other hand, is far more complicated, and yet, Goetz appears to have acted swiftly and decisively.

Now she has to find the right person to fix what is wrong with the program.

But that’s a lot easier said than done.