Patrick McCaffery "Game-Time Decision" at Michigan St.

Iowa Junior Forward Practicing with Hawkeyes

Iowa’s Patrick McCaffery (22) dribbles around Wisconsin’s Tyler Wahl (5) during their game on Dec. 11, 2022 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa. (Rob Howe/HawkeyeNation.com)

Fran McCaffery expects his son Patrick to return to playing for the Iowa men’s basketball team.

Whether it will be in Thursday’s game at Michigan State will be a “game-time decision,” the Hawkeyes’ coach said on Wednesday.

“He’s still practicing, doing better,” Fran McCaffery said.

Patrick McCaffery took a leave from competition after Iowa’s game on January 1 at Penn State because of anxiety. He has been with the team during home and away games, and has practiced with the team.

“He's doing everything that everybody else is doing right now,” Fran McCaffery said. “So he's running, he's lifting, shooting, practicing. I think his conditioning should be OK whenever he decides to play.

“At some point, without a doubt, he’ll be playing.”

Patrick McCaffery started all 14 games he played in this season, averaging 12.8 points and 4.8 rebounds in 26.1 minutes per game.

Iowa (12-7 overall, 4-4 Big Ten, 38 NET) head into the game at Michigan State (13-7, 5-4, 40 NET) having won four of its last five games, but Saturday’s 93-77 loss at Ohio State has taken away some of the Hawkeyes’ momentum, especially defensively.

“We were not as connected on either end of the floor,” Fran McCaffery said. “That was obvious. We're not a team that turns the ball over 14 times. We’re not a team that gets outrebounded like that. You know, we played OK for a while. We hung in there. We made a couple runs, we kept cutting it to eight, couldn't get it under eight. You’ve got to learn from it. And this is a mature group and I think that their approach has been really good.”

Michigan State has lost three of its last four games. Starters Tyson Walker (14.3 ppg), Joey Hauser (13.8 ppg) and A.J. Hoggard (12.7 ppg) are the only Spartans who average in double figures in scoring. Hoggard is second in the conference and No. 7 nationally with 122 assists.

“(Walker has) played about as well as anybody I've seen on tape,” McCaffery said. “Great deal of confidence, scoring the ball at a high clip. I think the development of Hoggard has been a big part of that. I thought Hoggard was good last year. I think he's becoming elite. There's two different things there — he was good, now he's elite. So now Walker can play off the ball — sometimes he has it, but he can go get buckets. He can score the ball at a number of different levels and get to the rim.”

Iowa has won three consecutive games against the Spartans, the Hawkeyes’ longest streak in the series since the 2005-06 and 2006-07 seasons. The Hawkeyes have won the last two games by a combined margin of 56 points.

Michigan State has won 14 of the last 20 matchups.