Jordan Bohannon gone for the season, and no signs of Patrick McCaffery returning anytime soon
By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – Fran McCaffery isn’t quite ready to say that his son, Patrick McCaffery, will ultimately decide to redshirt this season, but it’s looking more and more likely.
Iowa already is without starting forward Jack Nunge and starting guard Jordan Bohannon for the rest of the season, and Fran McCaffery was asked on Thursday with the bench getting a little thinner, if there was any chance Patrick comes back this season?
“It doesn’t look like that right now, but it’s always a possibility,” Fran McCaffery said.
A decision about Patrick McCaffery’s playing status will have to be made in the first half of the season in order for him to be eligible for a redshirt.
The 6-foot-9 freshman forward is battling residual effects from having had a malignant tumor removed from his thyroid in 2014.
He has appeared in just two games this season.
Patrick McCaffery’s absence, coupled with the loss of Nunge and Bohannon, makes this one of Fran McCaffery’s thinnest teams in his 10 seasons at Iowa with regard to depth.
Fran McCaffery has used as many as 10 or 11 players in rotations before at Iowa, but that isn't possible with his current team, unless he used walk-ons.
Freshman point guard Joe Toussaint told reporters on Thursday that he expected to replace Bohannon in the starting lineup for Saturday’s game against Cincinnati at the United Center in Chicago.
Fran McCaffery didn’t commit to a starting lineup when asked if he would stick with a four-guard starting lineup that would now likely include Toussaint.
“There’s a good chance, and there’s a good chance I might go big,” Fran McCaffery said. “We’re working on both. It’s maybe a function of who we’re playing and how big they are and if they go small and if they go big.
“And a lot of times throughout the course of the game you make the change in particular as you come down the stretch in a particular game. Do we really need to have two bigs out there?
Bohannon had hip surgery on Thursday, which went well according to Fran McCaffery, and it’ll take about six to nine months for him to fully recover.
Fran McCaffery visited Bohannon at the hospital shortly after the procedure, but his star point guard still was sleeping, so they didn’t speak.
McCaffery said the timetable for Bohannon’s recovery will depend mostly on Bohannon.
“He’ll be able to do some things probably after five months and go really slow with him,” McCaffery said. “Obviously, in five months we’re not going to be doing much. So we’ll really go slow with him and then expect a full recovery by next season.”
Fran McCaffery was asked if he thinks Bohannon came back too soon from surgery in late May on his other hip.
Bohannon appeared in 10 of Iowa’s first 11 games, and played an average of 25 minutes per game before shutting it down to retain his medical redshirt.
“I don’t think so,” Fran McCaffery said. “I think he did exactly what he wanted to do. The other surgery went well and felt good. This was, obviously, discomforting to him, and I think he knew at some point it was going to have to be done.
“The question was would it be done now, or would it be done later? And he clearly made the right decision to do it now.”
The 6-11 Nunge suffered a season-ending knee injury in the fifth game of the season against Cal Poly. He started the first five games and was averaging 6.0 points and 4.6 rebounds per game.