What Iowa coach Fran McCaffery said about playing Auburn basketball in Birmingham in March Madness
BIRMINGHAM — Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery had thoughts on playing Auburn in Birmingham during round one of the NCAA Tournament but didn't view it as the reason that the Hawkeyes lost.
"I look at it like this: Kind of very similar to what Connor said. In a perfect world, yeah, we probably would rather play somewhere else," McCaffery said. "...We want to be one of the teams that's in it. And I think once that happens, you have to take the mindset of we'll play anybody, anytime, anywhere. And I think that has to be your mindset."
The 9-seeded Tigers (21-12) earned the 83-75 win over the 8-seeded Hawkeyes at Legacy Arena. The crowd leaned heavily in favor of the Tigers, at times feeling like an Auburn home game at Neville Arena. The Tigers advance to play the winner of Houston and Northern Kentucky on Saturday, a time and TV designation have not been announced.
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McCaffery held the same belief as his son, Connor, while the father-son duo wished the game was elsewhere but didn't pin the loss on the crowd.
Playing in the Big Ten, we're used to playing on the road, playing in hostile environments. So I think, for us — I mean, obviously, like if we had our choice, we would have preferred to be a little bit more neutral. But that's not why we lost at all," the younger McCaffery said. "We're used to that. And that's something — we won at Rutgers. We won at IU. And those places are 100 times louder than it was in here today. So I think it's just part of the game."
Other Hawkeye players said they didn't view the crowd as a factor in the loss.
"It is what it is. You play to get to the tournament," Payton Sandford said. "Control what you can and play the game as you can. Unfortunately, we didn't play up to our capabilities. That's what happened."
This article originally appeared on Montgomery Advertiser: What Iowa basketball coach said about playing Auburn in Birmingham
