Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery Refuses Handshakes With North Dakota Players After Inappropriate Play

Iowa Hawkeyes coach Fran McCaffery expressed regret Wednesday after refusing to shake hands with North Dakota’s staff and players for what he considered inappropriate play late in his team’s 84-73 home victory over the Fighting Hawks on Tuesday night.

Fran McCaffery Refuses Handshakes With North Dakota Players

In the final minutes of the game, the Hawkeyes led by the final margin. UND senior guard Corey Baldwin turned the ball over attempting a pass with five seconds left. Iowa’s Nicholas Baer held the ball he intercepted and seemed content to stand and run the rest of the clock out, as player from both teams began walking toward their respective benches.

Baldwin, however, either didn’t read the cue or read it and didn’t care. He stripped the ball from Baer with three seconds remaining and passed to Drick Bernstine for a layup. The basket didn’t count, but the damage was done as McCaffery turned and headed to the locker room, motioning to his players to follow him as he walked away.

“I wasn’t pleased with how the game ended and the things that happened,” McCaffery told reporters after the game. “I’ll say this, I have a lot of respect for [North Dakota head coach] Brian [Jones] and [assistant] Jeff Horner. I don’t think they teach that stuff. But I was not having it. That’s not the way to play.”

McCaffery’s anger is certainly understandable. When you’re up by 11 points in the final seconds of a game and your opponent still tries to go out with a bang, even if it means doing something unsportsmanlike, one can’t act surprised at seeing somebody retaliate with their own distasteful action, or lack thereof.

Jones said his players are not malicious and that they simply wanted to compete until the final buzzer, but also said he would address Baldwin’s final play.

“We want to come here and play well,” Jones said of his players. “We want our family and friends to be proud of what we’re doing and be respected. I get the heat of it. It’s just the heat of the moment. Coach (McCaffery) is a high-character guy, I’m not blaming that. There were some things down the stretch that both teams could have cleaned up.”

It should have been a happy homecoming for Jones, who was an assistant coach at Iowa from 2001 to 2006, and Horner, a Mason City, Iowa native who played for the Hawkeyes from 2002 to 2006 and is still the program leader in assists.

The Hawkeyes (7-5) will next host the Delaware State Hornets on Thursday night.

AMES, IA – DECEMBER 10: Head coach Fran McCaffery of the Iowa Hawkeyes coaches from the bench in the second half of play against the Iowa State Cyclones at Hilton Coliseum on December 10, 2015 in Ames, Iowa. Iowa State defeated Iowa 83-82. (Photo by David Purdy/Getty Images)