Woodbury talks about Dakich, eye incident

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Iowa junior center Adam Woodbury stands by his previous statement that his eye pokes to a pair of Wisconsin players last Tuesday were unintentional.

'Without a doubt,” Woodbury said after Iowa lost 67-63 at Purdue on Saturday. 'I think you guys have seen me play enough. I've played here 90-plus games, and I'm not known for that, I've never had any intention of hurting anybody. You can watch the rest of my game film from freshman year until now. I've never done anything like that. It definitely was unintentional.”

Woodbury was shown touching the eyes of Wisconsin forward Nigel Hayes and center Frank Kaminsky during the Badgers' 82-50 win. The incident sparked a national firestorm when ESPN commentator Dan Dakich called Woodbury's actions 'gutless” and 'cowardly.” Dakich also said Woodbury should be suspended.

Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery vigorously defended Woodbury in both interviews and on his radio show.

'You can say a lot of things about Coach McCaffery, but you can never say he doesn't defend his players,” Woodbury said. 'That's one thing he always does. He has the backs of all of us, and he's a special guy for doing that. I really needed him at the time, and he stepped up for me. He really did, and I'll always be grateful for that.”

Woodbury said the incident affected his family more than himself and didn't know about the uproar until the next morning.

'I've moved on, I think he's moved on,” Woodbury said. 'People are hopefully going to forget about this in the next couple of days and just play basketball.”

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