Head games: Iowa’s McCaffery deals with sideways shooters

IOWA CITY - Josh Oglesby and Jarrod Uthoff usually rank among Iowa's best perimeter shooters. So when they struggle - as they have for much of this season - it challenges Coach Fran McCaffery's approach with them.

Oglesby, a 6-foot-6 senior guard, can stroke it from the outside with anyone on Iowa's roster. He's also as streaky as anyone in the Big Ten. Sometimes, that's good. He scored eight consecutive points in a minute last January to shred Minnesota's 10-point lead to two right before halftime. Other times, it's maddening.

As a sophomore, Oglesby connected on 26.9 percent from 3-point range. He knocked down just 42 of 156 perimeter shots. For as good as he had looked as a freshman (37.2 percent) and in high school at Cedar Rapids Washington, it appeared an outlier season. At least that's what he and McCaffery banked upon.

Last year, a broken foot sidelined Oglesby for about six weeks. He returned more confident, and it showed. He hit four of five 3-point attempts in his first game back and connected on 40.3 percent for the year. He drilled eight of 12 shots against Wisconsin and only one was a 3-pointer. He followed up with 16 points at Minnesota in his only start.

But Oglesby's shooting pendulum has swung back into the negative direction this season. So far he's hit just 11 of 48 3-point shots (22.9 percent). It has frustrated Oglesby and his coach, who continuously defends him.

'There are times you say, ‘Go hunt some shots. Go get us buckets,'” McCaffery said. 'And he's done that. You remember the Wisconsin game last year here? He went and got us buckets. So it is a fine line, ‘OK, let him be who he is or try to make him more aggressive and give him a more aggressive mind-set.'

'I want him to play with supreme confidence. I tell him I have supreme confidence in him. He's got the green light to shoot the ball.”

Uthoff, a 6-foot-9 junior forward, knocked down four of 10 shots for nine points in Friday's 90-75 loss to Iowa State. That's not a bad number. But he struggled at times to hit his step-back jumper, including on a pair of possessions late in the first half. That led to an internal conversation for McCaffery on whether to tell Uthoff to drive to the hoop or simply leave him alone.

'The thing you don't want to do with him is say, ‘OK, you've got to do that,' because he'll do that,” McCaffery said. 'He's that kind of guy. Then you say, ‘Well, you weren't successful the other night with that in-between, step-back jumper that he likes. He made one, he missed a bunch.

'So you've just got to be really careful with him because if he thinks that you're doubting him, he'll stop shooting the ball, and you want him to have ... he's one of my green-light guys. So post up, shoot off a curl, shoot a 3 in transition, whatever and don't really think about it.”

Oglesby's shot selection is good, McCaffery said. Oglesby is unselfish and often passes the ball (27 assists, five turnovers) rather than force a shot. But until he hit two late shots against Iowa State, Oglesby had missed 14 straight.

After his topsy-turvy sophomore year, Oglesby talked with Iowa's staff sports psychologist. Oglesby identified the misses as a mental block, rather than a physical issue with his shot. That's where he is today, too.

'It's kind of stuck with me, especially last year, was just staying positive and I think it helped,” Oglesby said. 'This year I'm just thinking of the same things and trying to stay positive and working on the things in practice, of what she told me. I'm getting more shots up, I'm practicing, they're just not falling. I think they will eventually.”

Uthoff and Oglesby - who played high school basketball in Cedar Rapids at Washington and Jefferson, respectively - have been friends for several years. They encourage one another in good times and rough moments, and McCaffery is there with them.

Instead of sitting or benching them, McCaffery opts to stick with his players. He believes it's in their best interests and it the team a best chance to win.

'The reality is, having played the game myself, it's kind of like if you're missing, you kind of then just move it on,” McCaffery said. 'So that's the fine line there. ‘OK, what do you do now? I've got a scorer who is missing. Do you shut him down and just tell him to be a passer and rebounder and post-up guy?' Maybe. I mean, you could. But he's never going to get out of it if you shut him down. I kind of want him thinking in a more aggressive mode, I guess I would say.”

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