Iowa assistant posts middle finger emoji to ‘frenemies’ following Fran McCaffery’s firing

Iowa is reportedly moving on from head coach Fran McCaffery, and the news was particularly troubling to one of his assistant coaches.

That would be Courtney Eldridge, an assistant coach for McCaffery who originally joined the program in 2016 in an off-court role. He was elevated to the role of assistant coach in 2022 after serving as a director of recruiting and player development (2020-22) and as a video coordinator (2017-19).

The reported news of McCaffery’s firing came Friday, the day after the Hawkeyes crashed out of the Big Ten Tournament with a 106-94 loss to Illinois. Iowa did upset Ohio State in a first-round game, but the loss dropped the Hawkeyes to 17-16 and will miss the NCAA Tournament as a result.

It is the first time Iowa has missed the Big Dance in back-to-back seasons since 2017 and 2018. The 17 wins is also the lowest mark for McCaffery since Iowa went 14-19 in 2018.

Regardless of how the Hawkeyes wound up at the decision, Eldridge is not taking the move quietly. He took to X (formerly Twitter) with a middle finger emoji aimed at “frenemies,” a group of people Eldridge described as “patting you on the back and pissing down your leg at the same time.”

Here is a screenshot of the post, but Eldridge’s statement is still active as of this writing:

Iowa was one of the teams most disappointed in the cancellation of the 2020 NCAA Tournament with Luka Garza and Joe Wieskamp lighting things up and leading the Hawkeyes to a 20-11 record that year. However, the program was even better the next two seasons with Garza and Wieskamp joined by Keegan and Kriss Murray in 2021.

Iowa went 48-19 overall from 2020-2022, but the Hawkeyes had just 1 NCAA Tournament win in that span. McCaffery never guided the Hawkeyes to a Sweet 16 in his tenure with the program.

Paul Harvey

Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.