Barfknecht: Fran banks on Siouxland plan

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Fran McCaffery is East Coast through and through.

Philadelphia native. Three-year starter at Penn after a year at Wake Forest. Coaching stops at Penn, Lehigh (Pa.), North Carolina-Greensboro and Siena in eastern New York.

So when he was hired at Iowa in late March 2010, McCaffery had more than the usual work to do to get acclimated to unfamiliar surroundings.

Such as figuring out how to get to Sioux City, Iowa, and South Sioux City, Neb.

He knew why he should go. Those are the hometowns, respectively, of two of the nation's Top 100 recruits in the Class of 2012: 7-foot-1 center Adam Woodbury and 6-1 point guard Mike Gesell.

Within a week of arriving in the Midwest, McCaffery had eyeballed both. Within a month, both had scholarship offers. In November, both signed with the Hawkeyes, serving as cornerstones for a five-man class ranked No. 19 nationally by ESPN.com.

"This is a national-statement class," Paul Biancardi, ESPN's national recruiting director, said. "To be successful in this business, you have to be able to recruit, and Fran's a proven recruiter.

"This is a class that, as it grows and develops, will be the foundation of Iowa basketball."

McCaffery, in questions Monday from The World-Herald, said even as he scrambled in his first month at Iowa to find recruits for that coming season, he and his staff spent almost equal time on what then were two sophomores in high school.

"The important thing was to really lock in on that class," he said. "We felt that class would really impact us in the future."

McCaffery had no secret formula in recruiting Gesell and Woodbury. It came down to a lot of windshield time and bleacher-sitting — by him, not just assistants.

"I went to every game they played over the summer of their junior year and the summer before their senior year,'' the head coach said. "In terms of being present and making sure they both knew they were the highest priority, that was helpful."

So was style of play.

After taking over for the fired Todd Lickliter — a Barry Collier disciple — McCaffery flipped that previous paralyzing pace of the offense to one of speed and transition.

"Our style of play is something that they were both interested in,'' McCaffery said. "They want to go up and down, especially Mike. And Adam is a running big man. He's a runner, he can pass, he can play out on the perimeter. He's not locked into the block."

Iowa had another specific selling point with Gesell, who throughout most of his AAU career played off guard instead of point guard.

McCaffery is a former point guard. Playing as a freshman at Wake Forest, he was nicknamed "White Magic." And during evaluation periods, McCaffery said, he quickly saw Gesell's future as the man who needs the ball in his hands.

"I told him we're bringing you in to play point guard," McCaffery said. "That's how you're going to get to the NBA, as a scoring '1,' not as a combo."

McCaffery wasn't the only ex-point guard trying to sell Gesell on such a connection. So were Stanford coach Johnny Dawkins, who played at Duke, and Virginia coach Tony Bennett, who played at Wisconsin-Green Bay.

But Gesell, listed No. 73 in the ESPN.com Top 100 for 2012, picked Iowa over those two schools and Nebraska.

"This is the guy," McCaffery said, "who can engineer a victory for us night in and night out in what is clearly the most competitive league in college basketball."

Woodbury, rated No. 41, turned down North Carolina and had multiple other offers, including Nebraska and Creighton.

"We spent so much time recruiting them that they felt comfortable with us," McCaffery said. "They saw improvement in what we were doing."

Iowa (11-9, 3-4) will try to show that improvement Thursday when it hosts Nebraska (10-9, 2-6) at 6 p.m. Forgive some Hawkeye fans for dreaming about who is in the lineup next year when these teams meet.

Contact the writer:

402-444-1024, lee.barfknecht@owh.com

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