Iowa's foundation firm under Fran McCaffery

The idea that Fran McCaffery — in his seventh year at the helm of Iowa men's basketball — would be under pressure to keep his job got a dismissive laugh recently from Iowa Athletics Director Gary Barta, followed by, "that's ridiculous."

The man who hired McCaffery to coach the Hawkeyes couldn't understand why anyone might think the seat is warm. Iowa has improved steadily since McCaffery took over beginning in the 2010-11 season and has returned in many ways to the level of success and expectation seen under Tom Davis and Steve Alford.

Whether he'll take Iowa beyond that level remains to be seen, though his compensation and expectations suggest it.

It would be incredibly difficult for a man in the midst of his and his program's journey to evaluate what it is on the fly. But in the middle of what seems to be a major transition year — where the crop of players has shifted drastically from one experience level to another — it's not hard for his colleagues, his former players and his boss to see the forest for the trees.

Anyone who remembers the final days of the Todd Lickliter era remembers the whimper with which his time as Iowa's head coach finished.

Fans and those around the program felt, in many ways, defeated. Game atmospheres felt lifeless. Carver-Hawkeye Arena averaged 8,938 fans in the 2009-10 season, which is just more than half-full in an arena that holds 15,400. And it was hopeless, the idea of winning a Big Ten championship.

That last point was the catalyst for why McCaffery was hired at Iowa. Barta told The Gazette his approach to every sport at Iowa is to make the low point for each team the middle of the Big Ten, because in his estimation, 'if our teams are consistently in the top half of the Big Ten, in any given year they can compete for a championship.'

During Lickliter's three seasons, the Hawkeyes' best record was 15-16 in 2008-09 and Iowa finished no better than eighth in the Big Ten. When the obvious switch was made, Barta sought someone who had a track record of turning programs around. McCaffery checked off that box on his resume three times — he took Lehigh, UNC-Greensboro and Siena all from the cellar to the NCAA Tournament.

'We had gotten to a point where foundationally we were at the bottom. There was no way we could expect to win a championship from the bottom,' Barta said. 'He had taken three programs from dead last in their conference when he was hired to the NCAA Tournament. You can do it once, accidentally, maybe twice. To do it three times, it told me he had a formula in making it sustainable.

'He has done what he and I talked about in the interview process and what he described to me he wanted to do. We didn't want a quick fix. He's done it almost entirely with freshmen. That has a tendency to build a stronger foundation.'

Attendance figures are up substantially from that woeful final Lickliter year to where Iowa averaged 13,835 fans last season, something Barta attributed almost directly to McCaffery.

The style the Hawkeyes play and the success that's come with has increased fan participation, as it would anywhere. While Barta acknowledged attendance still isn't where he — or many other college programs, for that matter — want it to be, there's no doubting it's better than it was.

'At Iowa, a lot of that (attendance problems) was interest waning,' Barta said. 'Fran brought us back to where the last several years we've been in the top 25 in attendance in the country. Absolutely, he's brought a style of play, he's had enough success so he's reinvigorated the fan base.'

McCaffery's results as Iowa's head coach are linear. The Hawkeyes were 11-20 his first year, but followed that up with back-to-back trips to the NIT (including the final in 2012-13), then three straight trips to the NCAA Tournament and now four straight seasons with 20 or more wins. For reference, Iowa only had three seasons total that topped 20 wins in eight years under Alford.

What he's done so far isn't a surprise to anyone who's known him long.

Northern Iowa Coach Ben Jacobson saw McCaffery twice while he was at Siena, and told The Gazette he could tell McCaffery had the chops to get where he is. Things are no longer so lifeless at Carver-Hawkeye Arena and there certainly is hope to compete. The seeds for that were sown a long time ago.

'It was easy for me to see, just in the first introduction just how good of an Xs and Os coach he is, in terms of what they do and how they do it. As impressive was the effort level — how hard those teams played at Siena,' Jacobson said. 'When he got the job here, already having played against him twice when we had a really good team, I just felt like he was going to do what he has now done. I don't see that changing.'

Memes, parody Twitter accounts; even portions of opposing teams' hype videos (Nebraska) are dedicated to pointing out an obvious and always-on-display aspect to McCaffery's coaching style: he wears his emotions on his sleeve and doesn't try to hide it.

McCaffery's style rubs a lot of people the wrong way — in similar ways to how Bobby Knight did or how Roy Williams or Mike Krzyzewski currently do. The way McCaffery displays his anger or frustration has gotten him ejected from games, booed relentlessly by opposing crowds and more than a few discussions with Barta.

Barta hears what people have to say about McCaffery's style, and their discussions are frank. But there was not a moment's hesitation in Iowa's AD when he laid out why he takes the good with the bad when it comes to the way McCaffery coaches.

'I know him well. I know his foundation and his values are strong. I know he loves his players passionately. I know how passionate he is and how intense he is,' Barta said. 'There are times when it gets to be too far, too much. We talk openly about it and regularly about it. How do you balance that passion with making sure it doesn't cross lines? I would say most of the time it's there. He's aware of it.

'We all want to be the best we can be, including him.'

At the end of it, though, McCaffery's intense coaching style is a matter of perception. Those who believe they know him best see it far differently than some in the stands or watching at home.

'He's honest all the time. That's what I love about him. He doesn't yell at people just to yell. He's honest with you,' said Eric May, who played at Iowa from 2009-10 through 2012-13, and played for both Lickliter and McCaffery. 'Fran cares about his players more than any coach I've ever been around. He wants them to succeed. He's just honest. They think he's doing that for himself, but that's not the case. You just see when he gets upset because that's on display.

'Most of the time he's yelling, he's fighting for his guys. I'd rather have a coach that does that than one who just sits there and lets the game happen.'

In the last two seasons, Iowa has faded toward the end of the regular season. Particularly, last season, Iowa was ranked in the top five in the nation, but sputtered into a first-round Big Ten tournament loss before an NCAA tournament berth that saw a buzzer-beating win against Temple and loss to eventual champ Villanova.

The finishes to the last two seasons has been attributed to McCaffery's intensity. Each of the former players asked, as well as Barta, called that into serious question. The Big Ten is tough, they said. Even the best teams have to fight and claw to make it through.

Those who played for him wanted him to make it tough on them, to push them to be better every day. Especially now, players know what they're signing up for when they agree to play for McCaffery.

'The best way I can describe him is just, 'real,'' said Matt Gatens, who played at Iowa from 2008-09 to 2011-12. 'Fran is Fran. He's going to coach a certain way, but he's going to do what's in the best interests of the guys and get them motivated and ready to play because that's the kind of guy he is.

'He's going to do what's in the best interests for his guys. He's the kind of guy you want to go to battle with.'

Barta kindly dismissed the notion, too, of this being a transition year or a rebuilding year.

After all, McCaffery doesn't get paid $2.8 million per year to relax at any point, and as Barta said, to dismiss this season as simply a rebuild would be to waste Peter Jok's final season. This year's Iowa team has seen every end of the emotional and results spectrum, and that ride likely won't end soon.

But the style of play McCaffery has his guys running now makes the Hawkeyes an enjoyable team to watch from many people's perspectives. May and Gatens both talked at length about how much they loved playing in McCaffery's system, and both are encouraged about where things are going.

'I think people are excited about it. It's a lot different than when I was coming in my freshman year. Basketball was definitely more of an afterthought. But now people get excited,' May said. 'The way he plays, they're competitive in any game. There's excitement coming into each game and year. That wasn't there eight years ago.'

Gatens, who gets to watch from the Carver-Hawkeye Arena seats in person while he recovers from an injury sustained playing professionally, loves what he's seen from this group. He's spent time with them, coaching for part of the summer Prime Time League, and echoed a lot of what McCaffery has said about their learning experiences in Big Ten play.

While Jok finishes out his senior season averaging 22.9 points and powering the Hawkeyes to hold onto hope for the post season, it's hard not to look to the future that's already in front of Iowa's eyes. Tyler Cook, Cordell Pemsl, Jordan Bohannon and Isaiah Moss all start as freshmen. Nicholas Baer, Brady Ellingson and Ahmad Wagner are just sophomores. And with Luka Garza, Jack Nunge and (likely) Connor McCaffery coming in next year, the talent pool is deep.

Barta wanted Iowa to have a foundation, and midway through his hire's seventh season, he believes it's there.

'I feel like the foundation is strong. I'm not willing and I know Fran's not willing to concede that it's a rebuilding year,' Barta said. 'You can peel back the curtain and see we're starting (four) freshmen and have a group that's so much fun to watch. And we have a recruiting class coming in that, by all accounts, is very strong.

'I love where we're at and I love where we're headed.'

l Comments: (319) 368-8884; jeremiah.davis@thegazette.com