One of the longest tenured active coaches in major men’s college basketball is now out of a job.
Iowa has fired coach Fran McCaffery after 15 seasons at the school, the university announced Friday afternoon.
The decision came the day after the Hawkeyes fell to Illinois 106-94 in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament, a loss that dropped them to 17-16 on the season. Iowa lost 12 of its final 17 games after a 12-4 start.
The Hawkeyes, who finished 15th of 18 Big Ten teams after being picked 10th in the league’s preseason poll, played their final 12 games without leading scorer and rebounder Owen Freeman, who underwent season-ending finger surgery in early February.
McCaffery is the program’s all-time wins leader, with a 297-207 record over the course of his time with Iowa. He’s 548-384 in his career as a Division I head coach, which included previous stops at Siena, UNC Greensboro and Lehigh.
The 65-year-old McCaffery led the Hawkeyes to the NCAA Tournament in seven of the final 11 seasons of his tenure in which the tournament was held, but never advanced past the second round. Those tournament shortcomings most notably included a second-round loss to Oregon in 2021 as a No. 2 seed with national player of the year Luka Garza.
This will mark the second consecutive season that Iowa missed the NCAA Tournament and failed to win at least 20 games.
‘Fran McCaffery has been an integral part of our Hawkeye family for the past 15 years,’ Iowa athletic director Beth Goetz said in a statement. ‘He is a tremendous coach and teacher, and we are grateful for the positive impact he has made on the institution and the community. We have a deep appreciation for his dedication to our student-athletes and his passion for the game that will have a lasting impact on our program.’
ESPN’s Pete Thamel first reported news of McCaffery’s firing.
Following the Hawkeyes’ Big Ten Tournament loss Thursday — a game in which the famously hot-tempered McCaffery was ejected with 13 minutes remaining — McCaffery said in a news conference that he expected to be Iowa’s coach next season and beyond.
The Hawkeyes become the third Big Ten program with a coaching vacancy, joining Indiana and Minnesota.
Behind future NBA players like Garza and brothers Keegan and Kris Murray, McCaffery’s teams regularly excelled offensively, finishing in the top 20 nationally in adjusted offensive efficiency in each of the past eight seasons, according to KenPom. They struggled on the other end of the floor in his final years, however, never finishing higher than 157th in Division I in adjusted defensive efficiency.
