Fran McCaffery credits Iowa players for late comeback vs. Michigan State

Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery has watched a lot of comeback attempts over the years. But there is usually one way for him to figure out if there is any chance the attempt will be successful.

This past weekend against Michigan State, McCaffery didn’t have doubts. He knew his team could pull off a comeback — in this case, coming back from an 11-point deficit in the final minute to win 112-106 in overtime — because they believed that they could.

“It was interesting because I’ve coached a lot of games and I’ve been in this situation before,” McCaffery said after the game. “You get a sense of are they still fighting or is it me that’s trying to convince them to keep fighting? I didn’t have to convince them. They were never out of it. In their minds, they were never out of it. That’s the best feeling as a coach because then you can just concentrate on what you might want to run. We ran some late game package. None of it worked to perfection. It usually doesn’t. A lot of coaches don’t like to admit that. But what it does is it softens the defense enough so that the players can go make plays.”

In the final minute of the game, the Hawkeyes hit five 3-pointers to tie the contest and send it to overtime.

Three Iowa players finished with 20-plus points: Kris Murray, Tony Perkins and Payton Sandfort. The team as a whole finished the game shooting just over 50% from the field while hitting 17 of 36 3-point attempts.

“My number one responsibility as a coach is not to micromanage the game,” McCaffery said. “It’s to make sure our guys are the best version of themselves so they can go make a play. They just kept making plays, defensively and offensively. Intelligent fouls quickly, good trap, steal, find shooters, understand the general conception of what we’re trying to accomplish offensively and then play from there. Tony got a couple of big tips, put backs. You gotta give them credit. They came in and played hard and they scored over 100 points. They shot an incredible percentage. They were making tough pull ups. They were moving the ball. We just had to keep coming and we did. Can’t turn it over against them and you can’t get destroyed on the glass. There were two things that really helped us today.”

Fran McCaffery says his Iowa’s character is why it was able to pull off comeback

As of Wednesday, Iowa is 19-11 on the season and 11-8 in Big Ten play. Fran McCaffery said what have his team the opportunity to pull off such a big comeback is a very simple thing.

“That’s a simple answer: the character in that locker room,” McCaffery said. “It’s a resilient group. Like I said, they were really connected in every huddle and every timeout and on the floor. There was a lot of communication out there. Anything short of that you have no chance in a situation like that. I’m really proud of them for how they just stuck together and remain connected and kept competing.”