Iowa Basketball: Fran McCaffery Has Chance to Prove Himself

Fran McCaffery has had a lot of success at Iowa, but this is his biggest challenge yet

Iowa basketball head coach Fran McCaffery took over before the 2010-11 season. The Iowa Hawkeyes were coming off an 11-20 season and had not made the NCAA Tournament in four years.

It didn’t happen all at once, but McCaffery slowly helped build Iowa back to a perennial threat in the Big Ten. He led the Hawkeyes to 25-wins in his third season, brought them to the NCAA Tournament in his fourth season, ending a seven-year drought, and now Iowa enters the 2016-17 season with a four-year streak of winning 20-plus games.

Despite the Hawkeyes never making a Sweet 16 appearance with McCaffery, he did lead them to being ranked third in the AP Poll a season ago and 10th during the 2013-14 season. Even though McCaffery’s ability to bring Iowa basketball back to relevancy, and lead them to their best stretch since the early-1900s, McCaffery’s ability to handle roster turnover is greatly under-looked.

Roster turnover is part of what makes college basketball so great. Players can’t stay with teams for 10-plus seasons like in the NBA or professional sports, therefore coaches’ ability to learn their players’ skill sets quickly and use them effectively is even more important. Plus, coaches always have to be developing younger players since stars rarely hang around for more than a couple of years anymore.

The biggest storyline heading into the season for the Hawkeyes is how they’ll handle their major roster turnover. Iowa loses four starters from a year ago, a problem that is usually only seen at programs like Duke, North Carolina and Kentucky. Although, unlike those powerhouses, Iowa doesn’t have an endless stream of five-star recruits.

Landing four-star recruit Tyler Cook came at the right time for Iowa. McCaffery landed a highly touted power forward the year Iowa lost their All-American power forward, Jarrod Uthoff. While Cook probably won’t be an All-American this season, Iowa won’t have as big of a downgrade than if they had to rely on a former bench player to step up.

Despite this type of turnover being extremely rare for the Hawkeyes, or any team that doesn’t have a roster full of freshman leaving for the NBA every year, this isn’t the first time McCaffery has had to replace key players. McCaffery has had to replace his best player from the year before in three straight years now.

In 2014-15, McCaffery leaned on Aaron White after Roy Devyn Marble graduated and went to the NBA. Marble was the only player to see 30-plus minutes in 2013-14 and led the team in points and steals per game, while finishing second in assists per game. Losing one of the better guards in the Big Ten is not easy for any team, although the Hawkeyes won two more games in 2014-15.

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Then, last season, McCaffery had to replace Aaron White. In 2014-15, White led the team in minutes, points, rebounds and steals per game. He also finished as one of the most productive Hawkeyes in recent memory.

Despite needing to replace one of the most versatile and productive players in the country, Iowa managed to win 22 games last season, the same amount as 2014-15, and Jarrod Uthoff became an All-American.

While it might seem like dumb luck, both White and Uthoff were the team’s second best player the year prior to their breakout season. It shows that McCaffery relies on his star in the moment, but he’s always looking ahead and developing his next star player. That can be said last year, as well.

Peter Jok became one of the better three-point shooters and scorers at the end of last season. He’s ready to assume the role as Iowa’s go-to player, although the main concern is around the rest of the starting lineup, and that’s where Fran McCaffery can make his mark.

There is faith in Peter Jok this season, especially with McCaffery’s track record of implementing new star players. Still, there aren’t hefty expectations for the Hawkeyes heading into the season.