On Friday, Iowa ended the Fran McCaffery era in Iowa City, parting ways with McCaffery after 15 years in charge. Over the course of that decade and a half, there were lows and there were highs. There were painful losses and there were memorable wins.

In the interest of celebrating those big wins and good memories, we thought it would be fun to come up with our best ten best wins of the McCaffery era at Iowa. NOTE: these picks are listed in chronological order rather than as a countdown.

Fran McCaffery's first year at Iowa was largely forgettable -- the 11-20 overall record was only a slight improvement on the previous year's 10-22 mark. But the Hawkeyes showed growth and improvement during the season, especially late in the year in a six-game losing streak that featured a pair of three-point overtime losses and three-point road loss at Northwestern.

Finally, in the final game of the regular season, Iowa broke through with a big-time performance against a big-time opponent, #6 Purdue. Led by a 16-point, 10-rebound double-double by Jarryd Cole on Senior Day, Iowa held the Boilermakers to 36% shooting and out-rebounded them 48-40. This win was proof of concept that Fran McCaffery could pull Iowa basketball out of its quagmire.

NIT games don't usually get much recognition, and for good reason -- no one's ultimate goal is the NIT. But the NIT can be a useful experience, too, especially for a team that's been mired in the depths and is looking to climb back up the ladder. That was Iowa in 2011-12, the second year of Fran's tenure at Iowa.

The Hawkeyes went 16-15 in the regular season in that second year, then went 1-1 in the Big Ten Tournament, which earned them a spot in the NIT. Thanks to a quirk around home court rules, Iowa was able to host Dayton in that first round game -- and the result was one of the best atmospheres for an Iowa game in several years.

In front of a molten-hot crowd, Aaron White had a breakout game (25 points, 11 rebounds), Zach McCabe had a career-best performance (20 points, 8 rebounds) and Iowa shot 56.9% to blitz Dayton, 84-75 to give Iowa its first postseason win since 2003. NIT games don't usually rate such fond memories, but this was a big moment of catharsis for the Iowa program and fanbase.

Non-conference wins of note were generally few and far between during the McCaffery era at Iowa; one of the most common -- and fair -- critiques of the era was the Charmin-soft non-conference schedules that Iowa often played. Iowa didn't necessarily schedule any better in 2014-15, but the organizers of the (late and lamented) ACC-Big Ten Challenge tossed them a bone anyway, with a high-profile road game at #12 North Carolina.

Given such an enticing opportunity, Iowa rose to the occasion. In a low-scoring slugfest, it was the Hawkeyes who had the answers late, with Mike Gesell scoring the final five points in Iowa's 60-55 win. Gesell finished with 16 points to lead Iowa, while Adam Woodbury, Aaron White, and Jarrod Uthoff combined for 29 points and 26 rebounds and anchored an Iowa defense that held North Carolina to 27.9% shooting.

While Iowa's win over Dayton in the NIT a few years prior was cathartic and a much-needed postseason win after a decade-long drought, catharsis in the real thing -- the NCAA Tournament -- had to wait a few more years. Iowa made the First Four in the NCAA Tournament in 2014, but lost to Tennessee in overtime, 78-65.

A year later, Iowa used a six-game winning streak to end the the regular season to firmly lock up an NCAA Tournament bid. In that first round game against 10-seed Davidson, the 7-seed Hawkeyes took out years worth of hoops frustration and disappointment, blasting the Wildcats 83-52 to earn a first NCAA tourney win in 14 years.

Aaron White, whose late season heroics had carried Iowa to an NCAA Tournament bid, led a dominant Iowa effort, with 26 points on 11-of-14 shooting and six rebounds as Iowa shot 50.7% from the field, including 37.5% from deep. Iowa dominated the glass, 46 to 30, and held Davidson to just 0.81 points per possession, resulting in a blowout win that helped exorcise a lot of NCAA Tournament demons for Iowa.

Unquestionably one of the signature wins of the McCaffery era, Iowa played one of its best games in all phases to record a memorable 83-70 win over #1-ranked Michigan State. It was Iowa's first win over Michigan State since 2011 and first win over a top-ranked team since beating UConn in 1999.

Iowa never trailed against MSU in the game and led for all but 44 seconds, limited the Spartans' dominance on the glass, and held them to 42.2% shooting from the floor and 23.1% shooting from 3-point range. Mike Gesell led Iowa with a career-high 25 points (including 11-of-13 at the free throw line) and Peter Jok added 19 points.

This was a complete Hawkeye performance, a controlling the game on offense, on defense, in transition, and in the half-court. A 37-23 halftime lead turned into a 58-39 lead midway through the second half and made the last quarter of the game -- against the #1-ranked team in the country -- chips and salsa time. That doesn't happen too often.

A few weeks later -- which included wins at #14 Purdue and #4 Michigan State -- Iowa used a big second-half surge to complete a season sweep of Purdue and open Big Ten play 7-0. Iowa moved to #3 in the AP poll after the win, its highest ranking of the McCaffery era and the highest ranking for the Hawkeyes since a #3 ranking in 1988. The Hawkeyes were flying as high as they ever reached in the McCaffery era at this point.

There's a bittersweet tinge to this game -- Iowa lost its next game and then lost five of its final seven regular season games to cost it a possible Big Ten regular season championship and damage its eventual NCAA Tournament seed -- but that shouldn't take too much away from this win. Iowa outscored Purdue 50-36 in the second half behind a game-high 22 points from Jarrod Uthoff.

There were a lot of memorable finishes, game-winning shots, and walk-off buckets for Iowa during the McCaffery era, but one that still stands out came late in the season in 2017, when Iowa ventured to Madison to take on #22 Wisconsin.

This was a very young Iowa squad, with senior Peter Jok leading a group of freshmen that included Tyler Cook, Jordan Bohannon, Isaiah Moss, and Cordell Pemsl. With Jok limited to eight points on 2-of-10 shooting, it was youth led the way for Iowa, as sophomore Nicholas Baer led the team with 14 points, Pemsl had 10 points, and Bohannon had 11 points -- including that instantly iconic game-winning three-pointer.

Bohannon made many more big shots and clutch baskets during his Iowa career, including some that were likely more important than this triple to beat Wisconsin (like his late three to carry Iowa past Indiana in the 2022 Big Ten Tournament semifinals)... but you always remember the first. And this was Bohannon starting his Iowa career with a bang.

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One of the sorest points from the McCaffery era is that Iowa was never able to reach the Sweet 16 under Fran McCaffery; the Hawkeyes went 0-4 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament under McCaffery. 2019 featured one of Iowa's best chances to end that long Sweet 16 drought and it started with this thrilling win over Cincinnati.

Iowa got off to a miserable start in the game, trailed by 13 in the first half, and by 12 points just a few minutes before halftime. But Iowa outscored Cincinnati 48-36 in the second half on 65% shooting to turn the game around. The Hawkeyes were lethal from deep (11-of-22) and got big games from Luka Garza (20 points, 7 rebounds) and Joe Wieskamp (19 points) in the comeback effort.

That comeback led to another big comeback bid in the subsequent game, as Iowa rallied from a 49-28 halftime deficit to take 2-seed Tennessee to overtime. Iowa outscored the Voles 43-22 in the second half to get the game to overtime, but the Hawkeyes ran out of gas in that extra session -- Tennessee scored the first seven points of overtime and held off the Hawkeyes from there, ending Iowa's best shot at making the Sweet 16 during the McCaffery era.

The 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons were marked by historic individual performances by Luka Garza en route to back-to-back national player of the year and Big Ten Player of the Year honors and a lot of regular season success -- but also notable postseason frustration. The Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments were wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, while Iowa ended up going just 1-1 in the Big Ten and NCAA Tournaments in 2021.

One of the highest points in those regular seasons came late in the 2020-21 season, though, when #9 Iowa dominated a Top-10 showdown with #4 Ohio State in Columbus. Iowa shot 51.6% in the first half to open up a commanding 42-28 lead at halftime, then withstood a few Ohio State rallies in the second half to come away with a dominant road win.

The star of the show was, of course, Luka Garza, who had 24 points on 10-of-16 shooting, and 11 rebounds; Joe Wieskamp added 19 points (and went 5-of-9 from long range) and 8 rebounds as well. March didn't go the way Iowa wanted, but they ended February with an emphatic -- and impressive -- victory.

In hindsight, the last great moment of the McCaffery era at Iowa was the 2022 Big Ten Tournament. That was a good Iowa team and it got hot at the right moment in Indianapolis, where everything clicked and Iowa won four games in four days to win its first Big Ten Tournament title since 2006 and give Fran his one and only Big Ten championship of any kind at Iowa.

The semifinal win over Indiana was a thriller, with Iowa needing 32 points and nine rebounds from Keegan Murray and a late triple from Jordan Bohannon to get by the Hoosiers. Murray shot an incredible 8-of-10 from beyond the arc in that win. After making 14-of-32 threes against Indiana, Iowa shot just 8-of-28 from deep in the final against Purdue, but shot 54.5% inside the arc and turned 17 Purdue turnovers into 14 points.

Keegan Murray had another double-double (19 points and 11 rebounds), Tony Perkins had 11 points, and a young Payton Sandfort had 10 points off the bench, including a pair of key three-pointers late. In the end, Iowa did just enough to hold off the Boilermakers and claim a Big Ten Tournament title.

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