The Iowa basketball team has played tough on the road in just about every game this year, but Wednesday night they ran into a buzz saw at Purdue. The Boilermakers ran off 17 straight points early in the first half and the outcome was essentially decided. Following the loss, Fran McCaffery took the blame for the defeat and discussed what went wrong for the Hawkeyes.

Q: When your team is has a start like that with 17 straight points scored against you, how do you deal with that when it happens?

McCAFFERY: I think the way they pounded us on the glass early, and they do that to a lot of people, we had to be better there. You are trying to at least give them a chance to miss and not give them two or three shots per possession. I think it starts there. Then what often times happens, especially on the road, you get behind and you try to get it all back at once and quick shoot or put your head down and drive the ball past people, which is not going to work here against this team. We needed a little more pace and to slow it down, which is contrary to what your mind is telling you to do when you are down 17-4 or whatever it was. To Luka’s credit, he helped us hang in a little bit, but other than him we really didn’t have much going offensively, which puts even more pressure on your defense and your rebounding.

They settled in and they were moving the ball pretty good. They had a lot of guys making three’s and that makes it difficult because they have low post scorers as well and that’s what stretches your defense. Credit to them with how they executed.

Q: Was this just one of those nights where it just wasn’t there?

McCAFFERY: You can say that. We didn’t play well and our opponent had something to do with that. I think you have to be willing to admit that and say we got outplayed and out fought and we got out executed. Ok, what could we have done differently as coaches? What could we have done differently as a team? Individually I think you have to look at yourself and say, ok I didn’t do this or didn’t do that. Now we just have to be better. I think we have to learn from that. I don’t think when we really needed to, we didn’t compete the way we should have. We kind of lost our composure and they benefited from that and took advantage of that. Credit to them for that as well.

Q: You really haven’t had a game like this during this season. What do you tell them to make sure it doesn’t happen again?

McCAFFERY: The last thing you want to do is start screaming and yelling and calling guys out and placing blaming because when you have a game like this you have to blame the coach more than anybody. You have to try and figure out what we could have done differently. You have another one on Saturday against a really tough team, so you have to regroup, be tougher, but understand we have had a lot of travel, so you get the guys home and get them rested. I think you have to be honest with yourself. Did I give the best effort? Could I have done better? But, you can’t let that linger. You can’t keep talking about it. It’s one game. We got our ears pinned back and you gotta grow and be tougher in the next one. That’s what this league is.

Q: You mentioned you want to move on and get ready for the next game, but what is it about coming here and getting ready to play at Mackey Arena and environments like this in the Big Ten?

McCAFFERY: You know what’s interesting because everyone says that about Purdue. I’ve been in the league ten years and I don’t see a big difference when our teams face them. They play the same way on defense. They play the same way on offense. I think like a lot of teams, they probably shoot it a little better at home. I think most teams do. They are more comfortable, the crowd gets involved, the three’s were falling for them tonight. To me you are always going to get the same effort from this team no matter where you play them.