You don't have to tell Fran McCaffery that it's been a tough stretch for the Iowa basketball team. After the Hawkeyes loss on Thursday night to Ohio State, McCaffery discussed the struggles in the second half for the Hawkeyes, particularly on defense, and if he should have gone to his bench more in the second half.

Q: What did you see during that stretch where Ohio State got back into the game in the second half?

McCAFFERY: There were a lot of things. We weren’t rebounding. I thought we were settling a little bit on offense. We got stretched out a little bit. They had some guys hit some shots when we were stretched out.

Q: Luka was only 2-8 in the second half. Did they do something different with him?

McCAFFERY: They were pretty physical with him.

Q: Bohannon and Wieskamp played basically all 20 minutes in the second half and we didn’t really see Toussaint and Perkins really at all. Any reason for that?

McCAFFERY: I thought Bohannon was playing really well and I wanted to leave him out there. I kind of went with my veteran guys in this game. In retrospect I probably should have gone to those guys and given them some rest.

Q: You went 3:41 without a field goal in the second half. Did you feel like you got good looks there?

McCAFFERY: I think we got some good shots and I think we got some possessions that weren’t good shots, I think that’s fair to say. I would like to have gotten more offensive rebounds. Wieskamp had one good one in that stretch. I thought we got some clean looks. We were trying to run some actions and couldn’t convert at the same time they were.

Q: They made four three’s in a short period of time. What was the explanation for that?

McCAFFERY: I think you have to say at some point we weren’t as active in our slides as we should be, but given them some credit as well. They made the shots.

Q: In talking about Joe Tousstaint and Tony Perkins not playing much, do you now go talk to them about it?

McCAFFERY: Yeah, we will have conversations and I have no doubt that those guys will be ready on Sunday.

Q: A lot of the three’s were pretty deep. Was that on the scout?

McCAFFERY: Washington and Ahrens, they have range. We were above the three point line on them and that spreads your zone, so you have to give them credit. They were really deep and Ahrens had missed a bunch and then he caught fire and hit three in a row. We basically told our guys to be above the line and they were and they hit them anyway. You can always talk about what we should have done, but at some point you give credit to the guys who made them.

Q: How are you feeling about the team now? You have lost three of the last four, but you are right there at the end.

McCAFFERY: I think that’s a good point and that’s what is disheartening. When you are in a position to win and you don’t win, you feel pressure as a coach if I should have done something different. We talked about should I have played some different guys and I went with my veteran guys and we lost. Alright so maybe we should have played some other guys and rested them a bit. Then you could talk about maybe we should have run some different stuff or changed defenses more or earlier. Those are the things that we will discuss. You are disappointed and you look and they made too many three’s, well we made a bunch too. But, they made too many three’s and we got out-rebounded and we didn’t adjust and those type of things, but we did do some good things. It wasn’t all horrible. We just played a really good team and we were right there with them and we just have to do better in crunch time.

Q: What is Fredrick’s status and what about Nunge’s play?

McCAFFERY: Jack was fantastic. He had 18 and 6 and a couple of nice passes. C.J. is legitimately day to day. We pretty much knew yesterday that he wasn’t going to go today, but we left that open to see how he felt today and he wasn’t ready to go. It’s still day to day.

Jack Nunge is doing what he expected of himself and what we thought he could do when he got here and it’s fun to see. It’s fun to see how this kid is playing and he’s just going to keep getting better.