McCaffery's recruiting miles cover east, south, midwest

When Iowa's new basketball coach served as an assistant at Notre Dame, he really went after Winfield native and dyed-in-the-Nikes Iowa fan Jess Settles.

Fran McCaffery got to know the Settles family. Somehow, when Settles visited Notre Dame, McCaffery timed it so the small-town Iowa kid got to meet actress Julia Roberts. Still, it didn't work. Settles went on to score 1,611 points and grab 747 rebounds for some pretty good Tom Davis teams in the mid- to late-1990s.

Still, McCaffery left an impression on Settles. The two had a nice moment Monday morning after McCaffery was introduced as Iowa's new head men's basketball coach.

"He was a tremendous guy to get recruited by," Settles said. "My family really liked him. My high school coach liked him a lot, so I take him at his word when he says he's going to build those relationships, which is what the kids need."

Recruiting was a piece of the stone that ultimately sank former Iowa coach Todd Lickliter. Retention might've been a bigger chunk, but talent is what will bring the wins and fans back to Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

McCaffery, who served as an assistant at Notre Dame from 1988-99, didn't even have to be asked the recruiting question. He brought it up himself.

"I've often asked, what is your recruiting philosophy?" McCaffery said. "It's pretty simple. Recruiting is about relationships, relationships with players, coaches, parents, relatives, and I think more importantly, honesty and integrity.

"So, if I explain my vision for a student-athlete and what we think that will be, it's important to follow through on that promise, and as long as we continue to tell the truth, we can all deal with that."

Iowa athletics director Gary Barta liked that McCaffery, a Philadelphia native, made Siena (Albany, N.Y.) into a Metro-Atlantic Athletic Conference power by recruiting the east coast. The Saints finished 27-7 and lost to Purdue in the first round of the NCAA tournament.

Siena's roster included Edwin Ubiles (Poughkeepsie, N.Y.), who scored 1,939 points in his career, and Ronald Moore (Conshohocken, Pa.), who finished his career with 823 assists. The Saints' roster showed McCaffery's recruiting base, all New York and Pennsylvania and some New Jersey.

There are no guarantees that McCaffery will be able to lure east coast talent, but Barta likes the region McCaffery has covered -- the east with Siena and Lehigh (head coach), the south as head coach with University of North Carolina-Greensboro and the midwest with Notre Dame.

"I started to ask around and one of the things I was hearing was when he was at Notre Dame, he was a terrific recruiter in the midwest," Barta said. "Then, when he was in North Carolina in the south, he did a great job networking and recruiting in the south."

But Barta liked that McCaffery swam with the sharks in east coast basketball recruiting.

"I love midwest basketball more than anything. We have football, we have basketball and we have wrestling," Barta said. "If you go into the east, basketball is something they're intense about. He did a nice job navigating the recruiting out east.

"I felt comfortable he could build relationships in any any environment related to recruiting and his recruits had translated into successful students and successful players."

Barta said he talked to several basketball coaches during his search, which began March 15, when he announced Lickliter's three-year run at Iowa was finished. One Saturday night conversation struck him.

"This coach said he (McCaffery) is the total package," Barta said. "He can recruit, he can X and O. He understands interacting with fans. He does it all with integrity. That was the finaly confirmation I had, not only that he could recruit, but that he was the total package."

McCaffery struck out with Settles. He also struck out with former Hawkeye Kenyon Murray, a prep star from Battle Creek, Mich., who eventually picked the Hawkeyes over Notre Dame and Michigan State among others.

"I talked to my high school coach this morning and asked him a little bit, because when you're a kid getting recruited, you forget some of that stuff," said Murray, who scored 1,230 points from 1992-96. "He said that Fran was always there. He was at AAU events, camps I went to. He's a tireless worker. He and my high school coach have a good relationship. They're still friends.

"He was always there, and that's the thing with Iowa now. Youv'e got to have a presence and you've got to have your name out there. Even if we're fifth or sixth on someone's list, at least you're there."

Van Coleman, who runs the basketball recruiting site Hoopmasters.com, said Iowa's recruiting approach has to change. He mentioned Iowa's relationship with Rock Island (Ill.) guard Chasson Randle. According to Coleman, Randle's recruitment with Iowa was almost exclusively through assistant coaches.

"The head coach has got to be involved as well as the assistants," Coleman said. "I think Chasson was quoted as saying the only head coach who's recruiting him he hadn't heard from was the one hear at Iowa. That's got to change and I think it will based on the comments you just heard."