Iowa Basketball Recruiting Spotlight: Connor McCaffery

Connor McCaffery is the son of current Iowa Basketball coach, Fran McCaffery, and is the starting point guard for the Iowa City West High Trojans. Connor is the focus of this morning’s recruiting spotlight.

I was in attendance last night when the second ranked (4A) Iowa City West Trojans took on the second ranked (3A) Dubuque Wahlert Golden Eagles. It not only featured two of the state’s top teams, but it also featured two of the state’s top players. For Iowa City West it was McCaffery and for Wahlert it was Cordell Pemsl. Both of these players are also committed to the University of Iowa.

Connor got the scoring started early and he scored often.

He paced the Trojans with 23 points. He also recorded two rebounds, three assists, and two steals by my unofficial count. McCaffery also turned the ball over three times during the game. One giant takeaway I had was; the kid can absolutely shoot the basketball. Wahlert had to make sure they had a hand in his face at all times because if he was open, it was going down. He spent most of the night with Riley Till, who is 6’7″, following him around. So, McCaffery constantly had a bigger defender bothering him.

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He seems to have a very good feel for the game. And I mean, it only makes sense considering both of his parents were division one basketball players. He’s so relaxed when he’s on the court, not to mention he is smart with the basketball. At 6’4″ maybe 6’5″ he’s got great height for a Big Ten point guard. Oh, and he still has one more year left in high school.

There was a point in the game where Connor recorded a steal and was taking the ball the other way. He gave every indication that he was going to lay the ball up and in, but apparently, he had different ideas. Connor took off and attempted a dunk, but was ultimately stuffed by the rim.

Connor McCaffery just got stuffed by the rim on the way up for a dunk and Fran started laughing. You can't make this up. #Hawkeyes
— Dear Old Gold (@DearOldGold) February 10, 2016

It was a moment Connor will probably look back on and get a chuckle out of. His teammates haven’t wasted any time giving him any flack.

s/o to @connor_m30 for the booming dunk tonight
— f. portor (@top10_wali) February 10, 2016

That was Walli Parks, who had two dunks on the night.

But hey, it happens to the best of us.

He showed us some post moves midway through the fourth quarter when he received the ball on the low block. He took a couple of dribbles and pulled a Jarrod Uthoff-like fade away jumper for the easy deuce. He also played the entire game.

He showed a little frustration after not receiving the ball on a post entry late in the game. After not receiving the ball, he kind of rolled his eyes and slumped his shoulders, which is something I didn’t care to see, but it didn’t happen often.

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With another year left to polish his game off, Connor should be ready to play right away. He’ll need to get a little stronger with the ball, but after that, I didn’t see many flaws in his game. There aren’t many more regular season opportunities to see McCaffery and co. But, I expect these guys to make a pretty deep run in Des Moines, with the possibility of winning a state title.

We’ll find that out in mid-march.

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