Fran McCaffery discusses loss to Buckeyes

Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery saw the opportunity for his Hawkeye team to repeat as Big Ten champions come crashing down on Thursday afternoon in Chicago. Ohio State hung around and eventually did just enough to knock off Iowa 73-69 at the Big Ten Tournament.

Read what McCaffery had to say following the loss to the Buckeyes.

Q. Coach, shot a good percentage in the first half, but turnovers kind of prevented the team from gathering any momentum. What were you seeing from your vantage point of offensive execution in the half-court?

FRAN McCAFFERY: I thought we played really hard. I thought we executed fairly well. We got good shot opportunities, got to the free-throw line in the second half.

I think in a game like this 11 turnovers is too many. We had a lot of guys fumbling the ball, and we needed to come up with that one at the end.

Q. Fran, the pace of the game, especially in the first half, was that a big factor? Do you think that a lot of it was the turnovers? Because it seemed like they kind of slowed you down more than you guys like to play?

FRAN McCAFFERY: We were trying to push it. They run sets. They’re not going to go unless there’s an opportunity. I mean, that’s just how they play. We shot 50 percent from two; didn’t make many threes. Didn’t make many threes in the game.

I thought we took good ones. I wasn’t like saying, hey, that was a bad shot. I want the guys to shoot threes. They just didn’t go.

Q. I know the loss is still fresh, but what was the message to your guys in the locker room, and how do you kind of prepare them mentally to reset knowing that next up is the NCAA?

FRAN McCAFFERY: The interesting thing there is they already feel bad enough. So I’m not going to go in there and go around the room and talk about what you didn’t do and what you didn’t do and what you didn’t do.

I did say I thought we should have jumped on the ball at the end and called timeout when the arrow is our way. That’s what Tony alluded to. I think we thought we had it, and we fumbled it again.

Give them credit. They fought. That was really positive. I sort of reflect more on the body of work than what happened in the last 40 minutes. But like I said, I thought we fought hard. We got to the free-throw line. We got some stops. We didn’t get enough probably consecutively, and when that happens, you can blame everybody if you want to, but I have too much respect for Chris and the players that they have, and I think you have to give them credit. They came back and kept scoring.

They didn’t panic. I didn’t think we panicked. It came right down to the end.

Q. Fran, when you’re preparing for Ohio State, Roddy Gayle hadn’t done a whole lot for them offensively recently. He had nine points in the last six minutes. Where does he fit on a scouting report?

FRAN McCAFFERY: He’s prominent. He started yesterday. He’s a starter, so he’s at the top of the list. He’s a really good player. He’s not a guy that hunts threes, but he obviously made a huge one today. He’s really good off the bounce, and he proved that.

Q. I don’t even know how to describe it, but kind of an unfortunate first half for Payton Sandfort. I guess, when you get two touch fouls like that and you only play four minutes, is there any consideration of maybe bringing him back early and just maybe walk through how little of a factor he ended up being? Not by his own doing.

FRAN McCAFFERY: I really felt like he was really frustrated. I think you saw that. I think everybody saw that. That was unfortunate for him.

I think you always think about it, but I felt like Patrick was playing well. We had pretty decent defensive effort going on, and we kind of had our defensive guys out there a little bit more, and I wanted to be able to play loose and try to get going in the second half. It just didn’t happen.

Maybe it’s how they were guarding him, but it just didn’t happen for him.

Q. New opponent next week, at least a week, maybe eight days between games.

FRAN McCAFFERY: At this time of year, as you well know, a couple guys have a little nagging here and there injury, a little banged up. So you get your heavy-minutes guys some rest, and then we’ll go back to work, work on our stuff, and then find out who we’re playing.

Q. Similar to what he was saying, how long does this type of thing sit with you? You talked about not jumping on them right away after the game, but when do you say something like that?

FRAN McCAFFERY: We’re just going to move on to the next game. I mean, that’s the plan. Wait to see who we’re going to play and get ready for that. We take a very business-like approach.