Iowa players taking a shine to new offensive scheme

IOWA CITY - The numbers don't lie, and Cully Payne likes what he sees.

Iowa's freshman point guard saw statistics for Siena's men's basketball team and came away impressed. Siena averaged more than 75 points a game this year under new Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery. That's nearly 15 more than the Hawkeyes averaged this year.

“It's real up-tempo, we defend, we switch up defenses, kind of a fun style, to be honest,” Payne said. “Get up and down, make some misses. That's fun running up and down, scoring baskets, scoring 78 points or whatever they averaged.”

Stark statistical differences separated Siena from Iowa this year. Siena averaged 60 shots and 27.3 field goals made per game. Iowa put up 51 shots and 21 field goals a game. Siena hit on 45.4 percent of its shots, while Iowa sank just 41.4 percent from the floor.

Translated, that means Siena took more shots, made more baskets and sank them more often than Iowa did, albeit in different leagues. McCaffery told the players in their initial meeting Sunday he planned to switch Iowa's offense from a half-court, deliberate style to a freewheeling brand. Already, the players are buying in.

“I was pleased with how he came in,” freshman Eric May said. “He spoke confidently and everything. He made us feel comfortable. So I felt comfortable around him.

“I'm excited to see specifically what we'll be doing but just that as an outline is pretty cool.”

Payne sounded excited when talking about the offense. He talked about using May's athletic ability during fast breaks as an opportunity to score.

“That would be great to throw the ball at the rim and have (May) go get it without five people in the lane,” Payne said.

“In the past I've always been up and down. My high schools were up and down, defend and then this year, it was kind of slow, a little more plays, half-court offense. But now we'll get up and down again, which I think in the end will give us more opportunities to get better shots instead of taking a tough shot at the end of a shot clock.”

Siena also posted better defensive statistics. Iowa allowed opponents to shoot nearly 46 percent from the floor, while Siena's opponents shot nearly 43 percent.

McCaffery said Monday he had no concerns about adapting Iowa's players to his new offense and it seemed a plus in his initial conversations.

“They seemed to be excited about it,” McCaffery said. “I think we can play faster because we do have players that are able to make good decisions. They can make plays off the dribble. They can make plays in transition. I have no doubt that we can play faster because we're going to play intelligently as well.”