Connor McCaffery A Coach on Court

6th-Year Iowa Senior Uses Keen Eye to Help Hawkeyes

IOWA CITY, Iowa - When he hears the play call, Connor McCaffery doesn’t mind voicing his opinion if he thinks he has a better option.

“I’m like a quarterback, calling an audible at the line of scrimmage,” said Iowa’s sixth-year guard.

There was the game at No. 4 Ohio State on Feb. 28, 2021, a 73-57 Hawkeye victory. Coach Fran McCaffery called a play in the huddle during a timeout late in the first half.. Connor suggested something different. Father yielded to son. Jordan Bohannon got the ball to Joe Wieskamp on the left wing, and he buried a 3. Bohannon passed Jeff Horner to become Iowa’s career leader with his 613th assist on that revised play.

And late in the 2022 Big Ten Championship game against Purdue, Iowa held a 70-64 lead with 52 seconds remaining. The Hawkeyes had possession under the Purdue basket, and Connor was making the inbounds pass. He wanted Keegan Murray to go long against the Boilermakers’ overplaying defense, and told him so in a voice that even players on the Purdue bench heard.

“And he wouldn’t go, so we called timeout,” Connor said.

In the huddle, Connor again suggested Keegan fake a step toward the ball, then turn and run to the Hawkeyes’ basket. The coaching staff agreed. Then Connor hit him with a perfect pass for a dunk that clinched the title.

Time after time, we hear players described as a coach on the floor. Often, it’s more talk than action. But it’s not hyperbole when Connor McCaffery gets called that. He considers that description a badge of honor.

“Basketball moves fast and there’s a lot you’ve got to do,” Connor said. “I’m confident, and the coaching staff gives me the confidence to be able to do that and not feel like I’m going to have someone looking over my shoulder. I never do something unjustified. I’m not making stuff up. I’m thinking about the things I think are going to work.”

Connor’s feel for the game has been and will be a valuable tool this season. He knows the Iowa system, inside-out. He’s been going to practice since his dad was the head coach at North Carolina-Greensboro from 1999 to 2005.

“He just thinks about the game at a whole ‘nother level in so many ways,” Coach McCaffery said. “He knows what we’re going to see from all those (Big Ten) teams, and from all those different coaches.”

Coaches love it when their players communicate on the floor. But there’s talk. And there’s the experienced talk Connor brings to the table.

“We always talk about there’s a difference between talking and communication,” Coach McCaffery said. “You want guys talking. But you’ve got to say the right things. It’s got to be valuable information that’s being transferred from one player to another, not just making noise so it looks like you’re playing hard. That doesn't do anybody any good. You’ve got to communicate, and that’s what (Connor) does. It’s all day, every day.”

Value is often perceived as offensive production. The first thing most people look at is a player’s scoring average. Connor has a career scoring average of 4.0 points a game, and has reached double figures just 13 times.

Yet his value far exceeds his 536 career points. He’s played in 134 games, with 66 starts. String his 2,903 minutes together and he’s played more than two days non-stop.

“Certainly he’s been around, so he knows what we need,” Coach McCaffery said. “He knows what he’s capable of. He’s been playing primarily with the younger guys, so he’s been doing a really real good job with the leadership aspect with them, while at the same time he feels a need to be more productive offensively so he has been.”

You can’t underestimate experience, which is why Connor’s decision to come back should pay dividends in 2022-23.

“I was pretty sure at one point that I was not going to come back,” Connor said.

Coming off two hip surgeries entering the 2021-22 season, his body didn’t always cooperate with his want-to. A sore back made life even more challenging.

“I was hurt a good amount of the time, and I could never practice,” he said. “There were days when I couldn’t bend over and tie my shoes, my back was that bad. I just wasn’t looking forward to doing that again.”

He started feeling better toward the end of the season, which put a return in 2022-23 back on the table.

Iowa won 12 of its last 15 games last season, including four in four days to win the Big Ten title in Indianapolis. Memories of that post-game celebration carried some weight with him.

He knew he’d regret it if the team had success and he had passed on being a part of it. And he knew he'd regret it if the team was struggling and he wasn’t around to help turn things around.

“Either way, there was regret there,” he said. “So I knew I had to come back for one more year.”

One play, more than any other, sums up Connor McCaffery the basketball player.

After taking a 63-55 lead in the Big Ten title game with 4:15 remaining, Purdue scored seven unanswered points in 62 seconds.

After a time out, Connor had the ball in his hands on the right wing. A spin dribble took him into the chest of Trevion Williams, who had four inches and 40 pounds on him. Connor drew contact from the Purdue postman, made the shot and was fouled. He added the free throw, and Iowa had regained momentum.

“Get a score and it settles everything down,” Connor said.

For a guy who hurt so bad that he couldn’t tie his own shoe earlier in the season, that three-point play was an against-the-odds moment that Connor McCaffery relishes.

“That moment in itself was the perfect end,” he said.

But it wasn’t the end. He came back to lead a young but promising Iowa team through the 2022-23 season. A 23-year-old coach on the floor will be running the show one last time.