When Fran McCaffery was at Siena, he would make frequent trips to the Buffalo area to face conference opponents. This is his first time back to the Buffalo area in a long time and he's excited about the opportunity ahead for his Iowa team. He talks about the game against Richmond, his relationship with Chris Mooney, and more.

FRAN McCAFFERY OPENING STATEMENT

Just really excited for our guys to have this opportunity. It's so special. I always say I hope every one of my guys gets to go to it at least once. You want them to do it every year if you can. I'm very fortunate that as a player, as an assistant coach, and as a head coach, I have tremendous respect for every team that's in this tournament and how they got here. We're excited for tomorrow.

Q. Welcome to Buffalo or welcome back.

FRAN McCAFFERY: Thanks, John.

Q. When you look at Jordan and then when you look at your opponents and having six guys who didn't need to be here, but took that COVID eligibility year to come back, what's that say about the selflessness of these guys, and how much do you look at that experience that Richmond has and know that that is -- you can't overlook that?

FRAN McCAFFERY: I think it says a lot about Chris and how he has built that program. I will say this. I wish I could come back for a sixth year. It's something that I think was strange at first for the guy -- I remember talking to Jordan about it in the beginning, you know, because he had graduated, and he had in his mind kind of moved on. We had senior night and celebrated senior night. Wait a minute, I can come back. How great would that be?

I think the important thing for him -- and I'm sure it's the same for the Richmond guys -- okay, if we're coming back, we're coming back for a reason, and I think that's what we saw, two teams that won the tournament championship and get to play in this tournament, so I'm happy for all of them.

Q. Looking at Richmond's team, four 1,000 point scores and another one right there on the cusp, is there a team that you can think of that has that much experience and scoring balance?

FRAN McCAFFERY: No, I don't remember any. There may have been. We did play a number of teams this year that had a lot of seniors. You're seeing that more and more. Seven of your top nine, eight of your top ten are either red shirt juniors, which makes them four-year players or beyond, but I think the point that you're making is these guys were all incredibly productive 1,000 point scorers, so that gives them a lot of weapons, and I think that that has been proven, especially when they come down the stretch.

Q. My question to you is, what's your experience like in this moment coaching two sons and what have you learned from your sons as basketball players?

FRAN McCAFFERY: It's incredibly exciting. It was very emotional for our family on Sunday, but we've had some moments like that before. I remember bringing the boys and having them shoot around at the site when they were -- Jack was probably 4 or 5, and Connor and Patrick were in elementary school. Just excited to be here in the locker room with the guys and coming on the floor. How cool is this? Then to one day have them be on the team and be contributing the way they have, just phenomenally emotional for us. Just very thankful to be able to do that.

I've said this many times, but I talk to all the coaches that have coached their sons, and John Beilein always said, you see your sons every day. In his case, it was Patrick. For me, it's Patrick and Connor. Seeing them every day, experiencing the journey because while Sunday was the culmination of a lot of hard work and it was a great celebration, there's times when you lose and there's adversity, but at least we're doing it together, and that's what the journey is.

Q. Ed Cooley got asked the same thing. Just being back in Buffalo, does it bring back memories of your time at Siena and the MAAC and the amount of success that you had there?

FRAN McCAFFERY: Yeah, especially because we practiced at Canisius before we came over here, so we come up once a year and play Canisius and Niagara. That was always a difficult road trip. A lot of times, you kind of had to get through Buffalo to get to the NCAA tournament in many ways, so great memories certainly from my experience in this city.

Q. Fran, Chris Mooney is a Philly guy. You're a Philly guy. Can you kind of talk about your relationship with him and how that has kind of grown over the years?

FRAN McCAFFERY: Yeah, Chris was a really good player, really good. We both played in the Philly Catholic League, and he went to Princeton, and I went to Penn, which typically makes you not like each other, if you know anything about that rivalry, but I think anybody that played at Penn has so much respect for what Pete Carril did and what Bill Carmody did after that and right on through Mitch, and a lot of those guys that probably went to Princeton not thinking they were going to be coaches, that's not why you go to Princeton, but just fell in love with the game at another level and decided to become coaches. And Chris is certainly one of the best in our business.

We became friends over the years, and in particular, Nike used to take the coaches on a trip every year, and that way we not only would get to know each other better because I always knew Chris pretty well, but our wives would get to know each other. You know, and that's how I ended up going to Matt Painter's wedding. Our wives are really good friends, and I think that bond is formed.

Chris and I are a little bit different being Ivy League guys that just kind of grinded our way through the business, and I enjoy seeing him on the road. We sit next to each other when we're recruiting and talk. He has a great sense of humor. I have a lot of respect for what he has done.

Q. I wanted to ask just specifically to Richmond's defense as of late has been really solid. What impresses you about that unit, and also, in a guy like Jacob Gilyard who has a record that might be difficult to attain, and that's the most steals in NCAA history?

FRAN McCAFFERY: That's going to be a hard one to break. He seemingly is all over the place, and guys that play that way, sometimes they get burned. He doesn't seem to get burned at all. He has a great sense of where the ball is, where the ball is going, and you're right.

I mean, I think the impressive thing about that while their defense was really good, I think let's look at why. They went into that tournament determined to get here, and in order to do that, they had to play defense the way they did, so really got to give them credit for that.

Q. On the flip side, what they do offensively is a little different. I wonder how much of a concern that is for you?

FRAN McCAFFERY: I think any time you're dealing with different, it's going to be a concern because you have to get ready for that. We played some really good teams last week, but we were playing them for the second or third time this year, and we may have played them two or three times last year, you know, so we know their system, and we know their personnel, and coaching tendencies and so forth.

I think that's the beauty of what this tournament is. Everybody is different. Everybody comes in not knowing what the other team does. You try to figure out -- figure it all out in a couple of days, and then you turn the kids loose and see if they can execute a game plan.

Q. Some media analysts have you, Coach, as an NCAA champion finalist in this year's tournament. How do you deal with the pressure of that? How do you deal with the conversations of that type of talk, and what do you tell your team?

FRAN McCAFFERY: Yeah, we don't -- we really don't talk about that at all because that kind of stuff happens all year long. It didn't happen for this team, what you just said, but it did for last year's team, and it's something that I think our guys have to know and understand. That's what people are going to talk about. You're going to be good. You're not going to be good. You're going to be really good. You have a chance.

The only way we handle that is to specifically focus on the next game and not look too far ahead or not think too much about all of the talk around what's possible. I think you have to take care of the present. That's what we're trying to do.