Iowa’s McCaffery defends Woodbury

IOWA CITY - Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery reiterated Monday that junior center Adam Woodbury's eye-poking incident on Sunday was unintentional and he remains '100 percent behind” Woodbury.

With 5 minutes, 21 seconds left in the first half, Woodbury and Iowa point guard Mike Gesell defended opposite Maryland's Melo Trimble. Woodbury's left hand grazed Trimble's right eye, which sent Trimble to the floor and resulted in an Iowa 3-pointer eight seconds later. Officials then reviewed the play and issued Woodbury a flagrant-one technical foul. Maryland guard Dez Wells shot the free throws for Trimble.

'Think about it, here we are, we've got the game in hand, do you think he wants to stop it, give them two free throws and the ball, get a flagrant foul, be in foul trouble?” McCaffery asked Monday morning. 'He's playing the best basketball of his life. He had 16 points. Do you think he wants to be out of the game with foul trouble? He's too smart for that.”

Trimble left the game for 1 minute, 47 seconds of game action. Trimble said afterward Woodbury apologized twice and he accepted Woodbury's apology.

'The kid (Woodbury) apologized. We moved on,” Maryland Coach Mark Turgeon said Monday. 'I'm just thankful that Melo is not hurt. It looked bad when it happened; his eye is pretty swollen. He never had blurred vision, and he was fine right after the game. So that's a positive for us.

'I think the league office has to handle it. I think you have to be pretty talented to be moving full speed and poke a guy in the eye and try to do it. But that's just my opinion. But the league has to look at it obviously. The kid apologized, and Melo's fine so we move on.”

The Big Ten Conference has not acted on the incident.

'Every call from every game is reviewed as part of the standard officiating review process,” Big Ten spokesman Brett McWethy said in a statement. 'If there is a sportsmanship violation, we would send out a statement at the appropriate time.”

Woodbury has been involved in three separate eye-poking incidents this year, and all three have garnered national attention. The first two took place Jan. 20 at the Kohl Center, where Woodbury poked Wisconsin's Frank Kaminsky and Nigel Hayes. During the game ESPN media personality Dan Dakich said Woodbury should be suspended for his actions and called Woodbury 'gutless” and 'cowardly.”

McCaffery vigorously defended his player and said Dakich's comments were 'out of line.” That sparked a debate between the two that stretched over multiple platforms. The disagreement dissipated by the time Dakich called Iowa's Jan. 31 home game against Wisconsin. Iowa provided extra security for Dakich in that game.

Sunday, Woodbury tied his career high with 16 points on 6-of-7 shooting. Iowa (15-8, 6-4 Big Ten) beat Maryland 71-55.

After the game McCaffery took issue with a line of questioning when a Des Moines television reporter asked why Woodbury has had three poking incidents this year. McCaffery lashed at the reporter, telling him to 'ask an intelligent question.”

On his Monday radio show, McCaffery said he was upset about the repeated questions related to officiating.

'They have a job to do. I respect that,” McCaffery said. 'But do not put me in a compromising position professionally. If the guy that fired off that question didn't know, then he shouldn't have been there. He should stayed home. Because he's in over his head. That's why I answered the questions the way I did.”

Several national media outlets showcased the incident. ESPN's 'Pardon The Interruption” rank a 1 minute, 45-second segment where co-host Michael Wilbon described McCaffery as 'a bully and a jerk” and advocated for Big Ten schools to send football players into their games with Iowa to rough up Woodbury. Fellow co-host Tony Kornheiser labeled Woodbury 'a serial eye poker.”

'All I can tell you is we don't encourage it, we don't want him to do it, and I think when you have a quick player who's coming those kinds of things happen,” McCaffery said. 'If I'm not mistaken Trimble said, ‘Hey, it's an accidental play.' Like I said (Sunday) night, not one time was there a foul called on the play. If you just watched the game you wouldn't even notice until you slow it down. I think if you would luckily try to poke somebody in the eye, that's really hard to do. I don't think you could do that continuously.”

Woodbury, who stands 7-foot-1, doesn't play above the rim like other post players but uses his strength and length on defense. McCaffery said Woodbury's hands were not properly placed on defense.

'He's not really a shot-blocker,” McCaffery said. 'He's always been a good defender in the fact that he can move his feet as a 7-1 guy. I've been watching this guy since he was a sophomore in high school, and he's always poked the ball, stripped the ball. When you're playing a team like Maryland, they're going to drive the ball. No matter who you play now they're going to run ball screen stuff. Guys are coming at him. His options are, try to take a charge, swipe at the ball.

'The other thing is I know the kid, I know what we teach, I know him, I know his character, I know his background. He does not want this attention. He doesn't deserve it. It's not anything malicious, anything intentional.”

Iowa plays host to Minnesota (15-9, 4-7 B1G) at 6 p.m. Thursday.

l Comments: (319) 339-3169; scott.dochterman@thegazette.com