Fran McCaffery discusses keys to going on a run in Big Ten Tournament

The Big Ten Tournament is about to begin and plenty of teams will be jockeying for position and looking to earn or enhance an NCAA Tournament bid.

Throw Iowa among that group. And the Hawkeyes have a unique position in this year’s Big Ten Tournament, having won the event just one year ago. The Hawkeyes know better than most what it takes.

“I think you’ve got to get really good performances from a lot of different people, which we did,” coach Fran McCaffery said. “You have to be mentally tough, because not only is it grueling physically, but you’re processing scouting reports on a daily basis four times against four really good teams, against four really well-coached teams.

“It’s a great challenge.”

Iowa has likely already earned itself a spot in the NCAA Tournament, projected as a current seven-seed by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi. But that won’t diminish the allure or the challenge of winning the Big Ten Tournament for a second straight year.

“It’s a competitive challenge,” McCaffery said.

Iowa to keep Big Ten Tournament prep consistent

The one real key for Iowa according to McCaffery is simply keeping the preparation standard even on a shorter timeline in the Big Ten Tournament.

Players need to be ready to digest a lot of information quickly and then get it to translate to the court.

“The way we go about preparation is pretty consistent,” McCaffery said. “We’ve talked about that all the time. Just get ready for the first time we play, and then turn the page and try to take a very businesslike and professional approach to the next game, and carry out the game plan.”

That said, things are also likely to go awry here and there. Teams make adjustments and you need to be ready for them on the fly.

On top of that, the deeper the bench you have the better.

“As we’ve also talked many times, sometimes the greatest gameplans don’t work, so you’ve got to make game adjustments,” McCaffery pointed out. “That takes incredible maturity, both individually and collectively, so we’ll do that. Just get the guys to play as hard as they can. For a situation like this, it’s going to require a lot of people to help. It’s going to be hard to play five or six guys.”