The Monday Tipoff: Connor McCaffery's Discipline Has Made An Impact

Connor McCaffery got the first rebound for Iowa in Friday’s 90-83 win over Michigan.

He got the second rebound.

The 6-foot-5 third-year sophomore would end up with a career-high 13 rebounds to go along with five assists.

He also didn’t score a point in 34 1/2 minutes.

To his father, Iowa coach Fran McCaffery, that last statistic didn’t matter.

“It just steadies everybody down when he's out there,” he said. “You look at some stat lines. OK, (Iowa had a 38-25 rebounding edge). Well, he was maybe the biggest part of that. Twenty-two assists on 27 field goals. He was a huge part of that.”

Connor is a huge part of why the Hawkeyes are 13-5 overall, 4-3 in the Big Ten. He averages 6.7 points per game, but what is much more important is that he rarely makes mistakes.

He has 66 assists against 16 turnovers, a 4.13 assist-to-turnover ratio that ranks second in NCAA Division I. He has seven games this season with no turnovers, and he played more than 210 minutes in those games. He has committed just four turnovers in the last six games.

Even last season, his first full one with the Hawkeyes after playing just four games as a true freshman before finishing the year as a medical redshirt, Connor had a 2.4 assist-to-turnover ratio.

There is a discipline to Connor — he’s also a member of the Iowa baseball team, and his father pointed out that he also has a 3.5 grade point average as a finance major.

“For him, it's always been there,” Fran McCaffery said. “It's just the way he's always been. He's kind of wired that way. Just kind of always took care of his business. On time. Not late, ‘I’ll do it next week, just something is due, he turns it in. He works on it, prepares. Gets ready for the next game, gets in the weight room, gets over and hits, gets in the gym and shoots, that kind of thing.

“You know, Connor, he's never been a guy that you had to sit him down and say, you've got to do this, this, this and this, you've got to figure this out, you've got to get organized, because it's already been done. I think we would all like to be that way, but I wasn't. I mean, most people aren't, especially at a young age. Well, he's been like that as long as he's been going to school.”

That discipline breeds confidence.

Asked last Thursday if he thought he could be a Big Ten basketball player, Connor didn’t hesitate with the answer.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “I never really wavered on that. Yeah.”

The confidence came from his days at Iowa City West High School, when he was playing around the nation in AAU tournaments as well as for one of the top prep programs in the state.

“In AAU, you see so much, play against good teams, good players,” Connor said. “Go to camps, play against the best players.

“It’s just a multitude of things.”

“I think he started from day one at West High at a high when they were very, very good, had really good players, and he was able to run that team as a freshman all the way through, winning a state championship in his senior year, as he did when he was a freshman,” Fran said. “But also just watching him on the AAU circuit, watching him ... Nike Elite 100, NBA Top 100.

“So I've seen him against really good players in very difficult situations, and he usually is pretty successful.”

Connor came to Iowa and was expected to be the backup point guard to Jordan Bohannon, a role he filled last season. But although he never started, he often was in late-game situations because of that discipline and calm demeanor.

And, at 6-foot-5 and 205 pounds, he’s able to play more than one position, and guard more than one position.

Yet, Connor knows he has his doubters, just because of his last name.

“There’s definitely a double standard,” he said. “There is. Anyone who says there’s not, they’re just wrong.

“There’s always the thing, ‘OK, he’s only playing because his dad’s the coach.’ Well, OK, it’s the Big Ten. It’s not a thing anymore. It’s a thing in third-grade basketball. You’re playing to try to win real games. So that argument is beat. He’s going to do what’s best to win. He’s not out here trying to benefit anyone other than the team as a whole.”

“I definitely think it makes him tougher,” Fran said. “He's handled that perspective really well. I think it helps him … pretty much everybody in that locker room he knew, or knows really well. He grew up playing with Bohannon and (forward) Cordell (Pemsl) and (Ryan) Kriener and went to these events with (center) Luka (Garza). His brother (Patrick, a freshman) is on the team. He's played against (forward) Riley Till. You just go right on down the line, all the guys that we have. Same AAU program as (guard) Joe Wieskamp since they were kids. So there's a kind of respect there, but I think it goes beyond that. I think there's a legitimate friendship that makes it a little bit easier, I think, than him going into a locker room with 14 guys that he didn't know before.

“But you know, he's very respectful of everybody else and what they're going through, and I think he communicates well. He's always had a maturity level about him that just manifests itself well in terms of how the locker room gets along with each other. It's a long season. There's a lot of ups and downs. But I think if you're genuine in your approach, you can be effective in particular as a leader.”

To Connor, this is his program, too, given that he grew up around it.

“I’m as affected as a fan that worships this team, when we lose,” he said. “I’m hurt as a player. Win and I play bad, I’m happy. Lose, and I play good, I’m pissed. It doesn’t matter.”

“It's been a lot of fun for me to have him in the locker room the last couple years,” Fran said. “But yeah, I was fairly certain that he would be a guy that could help us win games at this level.”