Fran McCaffery ejected from Iowa's B1G Tournament loss to Illinois amidst hot seat rumors
Fran McCaffery’s job at Iowa may be in peril as the Hawkeyes will miss the NCAA Tournament for the second year in a row. They fell to Illinois 106-94 in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament on Thursday to fall to 17-16.
The Hawkeyes, seeded 15th, needed nothing short of a deep run in Indianapolis to get into the 68-team field. Following a victory against Ohio State on Wednesday, McCaffrey ended up not finishing Thursday’s game against the 7th-seeded Illini.
Just shy of 6-and-a-half minutes into the second half and with Iowa trailing 69-60, McCaffery was hit with a technical foul after having words with the referee. That wasn’t all: after shouting an expletive in the direction of the referee, he was whistled for a second technical and was ejected.
Here’s video of the moment:
Fran McCaffery double T and ejection 😐 pic.twitter.com/9waOHEEO8u
— Heavens! (@HeavensFX) March 14, 2025
While he’s no Dan Hurley, McCaffery has been known to lock horns with referees in the past, both during his time at Iowa and elsewhere. It will be quite interesting if his final on-court moment as Iowa’s head coach is an ejection.
If it is indeed McCaffery’s final game, he’ll depart with a record of 297-207 at the helm of the program. Iowa has made 7 appearances in the Big Dance during his tenure but has never advanced past the first weekend.