Boys’ basketball notebook: Jack McCaffery finds his way as freshman starter at Iowa City West

IOWA CITY — You asked Jack McCaffery what it has been like to play big-school prep basketball as a freshman, and one of the first things he mentioned was interesting.

“It’s a completely different game than AAU,” he said.

The 6-foot-8 forward has done just fine for Iowa City West this season. The youngest son of University of Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery has size, skill and a good jump shot, someone who most certainly will develop into one of the state’s best players eventually.

He averages 9.5 points and 5.4 rebounds per game for the Class 4A 10th-ranked Trojans. In many ways he’s like a fawn playing around with a bunch of full-grown bucks.

“Guys are way stronger,” McCaffery said. “It’s definitely the biggest adjustment I’ve had to make. My parents have been on me a lot with rebounding. I need to get stronger, obviously. Stronger for rebounds and posting up. I get pushed off my spots. I just need to get better at that. The physicality is way different that what I’ve been used to.”

At most West home games, you’ll see Fran and Margaret McCaffery in the stands cheering on their son. Margaret McCaffery, of course, was a Division I player as well at Notre Dame.

Older brothers and Hawkeyes players Connor and Patrick McCaffery are his mentors. His very excitable mentors a lot of times.

”It’s awesome. It’s fun watching him,“ Patrick McCaffery said. ”I get so happy when he makes a play, when he makes a shot. You probably see me up there (in the stands) acting like a maniac.“

After West’s win Tuesday night over Cedar Rapids Jefferson, Patrick was at the ready with tips about what he saw from his young bro, who scored 11 points, all in the second half.

“It’s like sometimes I’ve got to know which buttons to push,” Patrick said. “Sometimes I want to scream at him, but that’s not always the best way to go about it. At the end of the day, he’s still young, he’s a freshman, he’s 15, he’s still trying to work his way through it. I think it helps him that both me and Connor kind of both went through the exact same thing (playing as freshmen). It’s a grind of a season, and it’s the first time he’s ever gone through something like this.“

Listen to the latest “T’d Up With Connor and Patrick” podcast episode to hear more in depth Connor, Patrick and Margaret talk about Jack.

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