Fran McCaffery gives his Iowa basketball players green light to stand up for themselves off the court

IOWA CITY — Maybe this week’s neutral court of the Big Ten men’s basketball tournament in Indianapolis will be welcome to Iowa and the other 13 teams involved.

Unfortunate situations seem to follow partisan crowds, perhaps more than ever. No fan base should claim higher moral ground. But the Hawkeyes had a reason to be angry after something that happened Sunday night following their 74-72 loss to Illinois.

An Illini fan reportedly told Iowa player Kris Murray to “(expletive) kill yourself” and “you (expletive) suck” after the game. Murray had already been feeling rotten after barely missing a late-game 3-point shot that could have been a game-winner, and after making just 1 of 7 free throws.

Kenyon Murray, Kris’ father, shared his anger about it on Twitter and got a lot of support from the public.

“Here's the problem,” McCaffery said. “It's not going away. It happened to my son Jack. He's a freshman (basketball player for Iowa City West) in high school. He's getting killed on the road.”

At college games, McCaffery said, “As long as they keep putting people right by the court, they're going to be yelling. It's not just the students. It's the high rollers. They're typically worse than the students.

“There's one of two ways. Either you just deal with it, keep your mouth shut, or you go back at 'em, if you want to. Whatever works for you. We're not solving that problem today or any time in the future. People are going to buy a ticket, and they're going to come and they're going to yell at the players.”

Are things worse today in arenas and gyms? Who’s to say? This is, however, a digital world in which people can post truly awful things about anyone without much in terms of consequences. At least louts in arenas sometimes get ratted out.

“I will tell you this,” McCaffery said. “It's a thousand times worse on social media with what these kids hear and what is said to them and how they are viciously attacked. So I feel bad for Kris, but I can tell you this, he's not worried about it. That's one tough kid there.”

McCaffery gives his players genuine free rein on Twitter, Instagram and the like. Some Hawkeyes use the sites as bullhorns. Some use them as a way to self-promote or simply have a few laughs. Others don’t bother much with it at all.

The option, though, is theirs. College students should be opening themselves to the world they’ll have to navigate, not getting barred from participating.

“You prepare your guys for life, and you want them to stand up for themselves,” McCaffery said. “You want them to take advantage of the platform. Sometimes, yeah, there might be a Twitter beef. A lot of times they're using their platform in incredibly positive ways. If you muzzle them, you don't get any of the good stuff.

“I would say most of what our guys tweet and they put out there is positive. They will defend themselves, and I would expect them to defend themselves. Occasionally a line is crossed.

“Sometimes coaches don't want to ever get to that point so they don't deal with it at the front end. So don't tweet anything, therefore, we may never get to the point where you cross a line. You know what? That's life. Sometimes you cross a line and you deal with that. You might have to apologize. You might have to get reprimanded or whatever.

“But I would always want my guys to stick up for themselves, and you guys know me well enough, I will always stick up for them and have their back.”

“It is an interesting journey that they go through at this level, and my hope is always that it's the best four years of their lives. I want it to be an incredibly positive experience, but that's not what life is. There's defeat. There's adversity. And there's things that happen that are not pleasant. So we deal with it, but by all means, you want to fire back, go ahead. I'm not going to ever tell them not to.”

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