Fran McCaffery hints at officiating frustration when asked about Iowa's offensive struggles

The Iowa Hawkeyes have had one of the best offenses in all of college basketball this season. However, as the Hawkeyes have now dropped three games in a row, head coach Fran McCaffery has seen that vaunted offense seemingly regress.

The most recent of those losses came at the hands of the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Following that game, McCaffery was asked about the offensive struggles, which led to him implying that he was frustrated with officiating.

“There are some things that I would like to say with regard to that question,” Fran McCaffery said. “But unless you’re ready to start a GoFundMe, I will refrain.”

McCaffery is seemingly making a joke that he would need to raise money for a fine if he shared his thoughts on the officiating and how it affected the Iowa offense. That comes after a game where Iowa was held to 67 points, despite being fourth in the country in scoring offense with 87.3 points per game. Iowa shot just 12 free throws in the game, compared to 24 free throws shot by Minnesota.

Despite that foul gap, McCaffery knows Iowa had plenty of issues in the loss.

“I do think we quick shot the ball again when we got behind,” McCaffery said. “We were forcing some threes there. Some things might have been different with regard to those particular shots. I would have preferred to see a little more ball movement there, like we saw at the end.”

Three-point shooting was a major issue for Iowa. The Hawkeyes shot just 14.3% from three-point range, making 3/21 shots from deep. On top of that, the Golden Gophers had 17 offensive rebounds to only 11 for Iowa on their way to the 72-67 win.

Minnesota also did a good job taking Josh Dix out of the game, holding him to just three points. However, when McCaffery was asked about that, he seemed to imply it also had to do with what he already said.

“Didn’t I answer that question already? I thought I did,” McCaffery said.

With that loss to Minnesota, the Hawkeyes fell to 12-8 on the season and just 3-5 in Big Ten play. That includes games where the Hawkeyes have been scoring well under their season scoring average in the last two losses. Next, McCaffery and the Hawkeyes will look to bounce back against Penn State in a home game on Friday.