Fran McCaffery: Dom Uhl ‘absolutely’ part of Iowa’s plans

IOWA CITY — Last week's Iowa men's basketball media day featured plenty of questions about the Hawkeyes' rotation, replacing Peter Jok and how freshmen Luka Garza and Jack Nunge would fit in.

What it lacked was any questions about the team's lone senior, Dom Uhl. He wasn't mention in Coach Fran McCaffery's news conference at all, in fact.

It's natural to wonder how the Germany native will fit in. With the depth at his position and players with a tremendous amount of hype around him, Uhl seems the odd man out. That's only exacerbated when looking at the fact that Uhl's minutes fell precipitously at the end of last season, when he averaged 8.4 minutes per game in the final seven games.

At Big Ten men's basketball media day, McCaffery was asked if Uhl fit in Iowa's plans. The head coach didn't hesitate.

'Absolutely,' McCaffery said.

Uhl, who was one of the player representatives at media day in New York, was upbeat when asked about how practice has been, calling it 'really good,' and agreeing with his teammates that they're finding a groove.

McCaffery highlighted several things he's seen Uhl do well so far this fall as his team works toward the start of its season with an exhibition against William Jewell College on Friday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

'He's playing well,' McCaffery said. 'He's smart, he's versatile. … He guards everybody. He's a tremendous defender and a great rebounder. He's been really good at understanding how to break defenses down and finding people that can score, and not feeling pressure to score all the time. You don't have to score; we have plenty of scoring. He's been great.'

If those things apply now, it's in many ways a big change from an individually frustrating junior season.

Uhl averaged 3.2 rebounds and had five steals and nine blocks all season last year, down from 3.6 rebounds, 16 steals and 12 blocks as a junior. The biggest area of regression, though, came from beyond the arc.

He surprised a lot of people — including his coach — shooting 45 percent from 3-point range as a sophomore, including some big time shots in key situations (at Michigan State and at Purdue come to mind). McCaffery pointed out that his productivity on offense that season was 'the reason we were ranked second in the country because he was playing alongside Jarrod Uthoff, Anthony Clemmons, Pete and those guys.'

But as McCaffery mentioned above, Uhl won't have to do that to be considered productive. He also no longer has to play on the block much — if at all — with multiple others on the roster who can. McCaffery said Uhl has never been comfortable doing that on either end.

McCaffery said Uhl's shooting percentage, which was 35.1 percent overall and 23.8 percent from 3-point range last year, isn't all that important as long as he's taking efficient shots. McCaffery said as long as it's closer to 1 for 2 or 2 for 2 instead of 0 for 7, that's just fine.

The head coach insisted Uhl will not be an afterthought for his senior season. So if he's not going to be asked to produce that way, how do you define his production and ensure that's the case?

'For him,' McCaffery said, 'it would be: what are his rebounding numbers? Did he get to the offensive glass? What was his assist to turnover ratio? Is he turning it over; is he driving it into packs of people? Is he finding Tyler Cook at the rim? Is he driving and kicking to Bohannon for 3s?

'So for him, the other part of it is — which is a little harder to quantify — OK, I think he's playing really good defense. How do you quantify that? You look at the team's shooting percentage. How big a part of that was he? If he's really rebounding and we limit them to one (shot) and no second shot opportunity, and then we had transition and fast break points, was it his rebounding and his outletting and his filling the lane and making the extra pass? That's how I think you identify his performance.'

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