Everything Fran McCaffery said during Iowa basketball’s media day

FRAN McCAFFERY: I think you have to have it. I think you always worry in this league, going back to one of the previous questions, do you have enough rebounding? Everybody wants to play small these days. It’s OK to play small because why, because you’re going to shoot a lot of 3s, you’re going to drive the ball. But can you rebound effectively night-in and night-out. That’s the challenge.

Payton Sandfort is a really good rebounder. Tony Perkins is a really good rebounder. Connor McCaffery is a really good rebounder. Filip Rebraca is a really good rebounder, Kris. Patrick was solid; he’s got to get a little bit better, and he has been. He’s really focused on that.

If you’re going to play smaller and go with that versatility that you’re referring to, we can’t just all be dribble draw and kick-and-shoot 3s. Somebody has to rebound the ball, sometimes you have to go back and get it and you’ve got to limit the other team to one shot if you want to run the fast break.

I say this all the time: We can run on makes, but we’d prefer to run on misses.

Q. Have you seen or do you think you’ll see tangible positives from Keegan Murray and the impact that he potentially could make in the NBA?

FRAN McCAFFERY: Yeah. I would say definitely. It’s a little different now because there’s more factors involved in the recruiting process. I think a lot of people look at Keegan and say, wait a minute, his high school ranking was 347 and he was the fourth pick in the draft, he came into a system where he was allowed to showcase his entire skill set and develop confidence in a system that was successful.

That’s always going to pay dividends on the recruiting trail. Young prospects, especially anybody in the 6’7″ to 6’9″ range is going to be excited about that.

Q. Talk about the challenge for Kris this year, overcoming comparisons to his brother and maybe some of the other challenges.

FRAN McCAFFERY: I think that’s a very fair question. I would hope that people would just judge him — we’re watching Kris. Kris is playing for us. We’re all Kings fans. We love Keegan and hope he’s the Rookie of the Year. We’re so proud of him. He was MVP of the Summer League. The leading scorer in the game the other night, his first game. We just couldn’t be happier for him, but he’s not here — Kris is here, and it’s Kris’ turn.

I think it’ll be great for him. He’ll miss his brother. Those guys were incredibly close, but we need him to do a lot of different things for this basketball team to be successful, and he’s going to have that opportunity. He’s on a big stage. He can get it off the glass and push it himself. He can shoot 3s when he wants. He can post-up when he wants. He’s going to be out there most of the time unless he’s in foul trouble. Like I said, he’s been really good with that defensively. I’ve been really impressed with him being in the right place. I’m excited for him. I think he’s excited for it, as well.

Q. Defensively your team made…