Fran McCaffery on the loss to Ohio State

The hopes of the Iowa basketball team making the NCAA Tournament officially came to a close on Thursday when the Hawkeyes lost to to Ohio State in their first game of the Big Ten Tournament. Following the loss, Fran McCaffery along with Payton Sandfort and Tony Perkins met with the media to discuss the loss and moving forward for it in post season play.

THE MODERATOR: We’re joined by the University of Iowa, head Coach Fran McCaffery, and student-athletes Tony Perkins and Payton Sandfort. We’re going to go straight to questions for the student-athletes.

Q. This question is for Tony and Payton. In the first half, Ohio State hit its first five three-pointers and then 8 out of 11. What was happening on the defensive end that was leaving everybody so open?

TONY PERKINS: I would just say we didn’t give them enough pressure. It was comfortable, you know. They got great players on their team, and we let them get comfortable shots and let their best player get shots that they hit. So that’s the reason why.

PAYTON SANDFORT: I would just say we let them get way too comfortable early, and players at this level, if you let them get comfortable, they’ll take advantage of that. If we let them do that, I think it’s easy.

Some were open, some were contested, but you let them get comfortable, that’s what happens.

Q. I guess this is for both of you as well. This season’s been kind of a roller coaster at times with the way you ended it, before today, I should say. It showed a lot of growth. Can you take any solace from that, or is it too early, too raw to kind of look and appreciate the accomplishments?

TONY PERKINS: I’m the type of guy who always looks at the positive side. So we had some growth. We had a young team. So I think them going through this year allowed them to grow and see how far you’ve got to get to make it to the NCAA Tournament and how to play and how not to play, if you want to be a winner in this league or you don’t.

PAYTON SANDFORT: I think, you know, it’s hard to say right now, but obviously, as a leader of this team, I’m really proud of the way that everybody kind of grew over the year. It would have been easy to quit when we were backs against the wall.

We took some tough losses, but we just kept fighting and kept finding ways to stay in the fight. That’s why I’m so proud of so many guys. There’s guys that have been here that have had great careers, and there’s guys that are going to have great careers. But the way that we gelled down the stretch, I think, was special.

It wasn’t an easy thing, but I love everybody in that room. That’s the only feeling I have right now.

Q. Fran, I wanted to ask you about the trajectory of the season because there were certain junctures where it looked like your team was going to fall apart and sink south, instead they galvanized and played well at various times. Is it too raw in the moment to appreciate the growth, or can you reflect on maybe what they’ve accomplished?

FRAN McCAFFERY: I don’t think it’s too early. I’m really proud of this group. It’s hard to win 18 games with the schedule we had, and you’re right. We had some tough times. We had some tough losses, but we had some great wins. We won some close games. We stayed together. I thought our young guys continued to get better and continued to produce.

You know, not just Owen, who was the Rookie of the Year, but our other freshmen who played a lot. Ben Krikke being new, okay, he’s a veteran guy, but he’s new. I thought we fit in really well. We have great chemistry in that locker room, and I’m really proud of this team.

We all want to go a little further, but fortunately we’ll get to keep playing.

Q. Is it going to be hard in the next few days, or will it be easy to get this group to say there’s still more basketball and time left to play?

FRAN McCAFFERY: Yeah, I’m not worried about that. They’ll be fine.

Q. Kind of on the earlier question I asked the players about the first half three-pointers. They made their first five, 8 out of their first 11 in the first half. Was there something schematic you weren’t doing correctly or just the way that they were hitting?

FRAN McCAFFERY: There always is to a degree. We had a couple of mix-ups on out of bounds under, but the hard thing with this team is they have multiple three-pointer shooters. So you know, we did a good job on Battle, but then Middleton gets free, Chatman hits one. Thornton’s a handful. He hit a couple.

You’re more worried about him penetrating, and with his pullup game and creating. So he hit a couple early. Then Roddy Gayle hit one, and you expected him to be more of a driver.

So at some point you’ve got to give the other team credit and not say, wow, we should have done this or he didn’t do that and start pointing fingers. Sometimes you just tip your hat to them.

Q. Obviously all your guys gave as much effort as they could. Payton in particular being one of your leaders, it kind of seemed like he was trying to will you guys back in it. He did that periodically throughout the game. Talk about his performance and how you thought he played.

FRAN McCAFFERY: I thought it was particularly impressive considering how he was being guarded. So I’m really proud of him.

Q. Fran, Payton was in a real rhythm early, then he got that second foul. We asked him about that. He even had trouble commenting, he was so emotional. It just seemed like that took him out of the rhythm there, and he did get it back in the second half, but it seemed like he was really rolling when he got that second foul, and it really hurt him.

FRAN McCAFFERY: It hurt him. It hurt us. I think it was really hard for him because he didn’t think he fouled. I think he was trying very hard not to foul there. So I think it was a combination of frustration and knowing that we needed him.

But he just keeps coming. He’s really impressive. Just couldn’t be more proud of him.