With the start of the basketball season of the college at the beginning of November, Inside the Hall takes a team-for-team to the Big Ten and a player-per player looks at the schedule of IU basketball in the next two months.
Today our team reviews will continue with Iowa.
Earlier: Penn State, Rutgers, Minnesota, Northwestern, Washington, Nebraska, Maryland
The Fran McCaffery era in Iowa City ended last spring after 15 seasons.
McCaffery missed the NCAA tournament for a second consecutive season and was fired by athletic director Beth Goetz. A week and a half later, Iowa announced the hiring of Drake coach Ben McCollum.
A four-time national champion at Division II level as head coach of Northwest Missouri State, the 44-year-old McCollum had a successful I coaching debut at Drake last season.
McCollum led the bulldogs to a record of 31-4 and a round of 32 AD Tournament performance. As a resident of Iowa City who grew up in Storm Lake, the movement of Iowa to hire McCollum is very logical. He is considered one of the best young coaches in sport and his playing style is a fast departure from McCaffery. The Hawkeyes will play a deliberate pace and will be disciplined much more defensively.
The Hawkeyes have one of the best players of the Big Ten for the first season of McCollum at the helm. Bennett Stirtz, who followed McCollum from Northwest Missouri State to Drake, is now in Iowa for his senior season.
The 6-foot-4 guard was one of the best Point Guards in College Basketball last season and now gets the chance to shine in the Big ten. Stirtz on average 19.2 points, 5.7 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 2.1 Steals in 39.4 minutes per match last season. He shot 39.5 percent on 3S and is one of the best game makers in the country.
He will have a proven high-major running buddy in the defense half in Kansas State Transfer Brendan Hausen. The 6-foot-4 Hausen tried seven 3-Pointers per match last season and connected by 38.8 percent of those attempts. He on average 10.9 points and 2.5 rebounds in 27.6 minutes per match.
Senior Wing Tavion Banks arrives in Iowa City after obtaining MVC Sixth Man of the Year Honors at Drake last season. The 6-foot-7 banks scored 20 times in double digits last season and had an average of 10.1 points and five rebounds in 20.1 minutes per game.
The Hawkeyes also added Robert Morris Transfer Alvaro Folgueiras, the Horizon League player of the year of last season. The 6-foot-9 forward shot 41.5 percent on 3S and an average of 13.8 points, 8.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.1 blocked shots in 29.1 minutes per match.
Another Drake transfer, Cam Manyawu, is the likely starter in the five. Manyawu started his career at Wyoming and was a starter for the Bulldogs last winter throughout the season. Manyawu is only 6-foot-8, but on average 7.1 points and 5.3 rebounds in 18.8 minutes per match while he shoots 57.8 percent out of the field. He was the best attacking rebounder in the MVC and the second best defensive rebounder, by Kenpom.com.
Two other Drake transfers, Isaia Howard and Kael Combs, must be prominent in the Iowa rotation.
Howard, a 6-foot-5 second-year student, came from the bank last season and on average 4.5 points and 2.5 rebounds in 15.2 minutes per game. Combs, a 6-foot-4 junior, started his career at Wyoming and last season had 13 points in the NCAA tournament against Texas Tech.
McCollum was able to keep Cooper Koch, a 6-foot-8-week year student who had an average of 4.6 points and 2.1 rebounds in 13.6 minutes per game last season for the Hawkeyes.
The rest of the schedule will be made by a solid first -year class with Trey Thompson, Trevor Jirak, Tage Sage and Peyton McCollum.
Thompson moved to the 2025 class and the resident of Tennessee was considered a top 100 player in the 2026 class before the reclassification. On 6-foot-8 he was able to offer the depth of the forefront.
Jirak, a center of 6 foot-11, was Mr. Basketball in Iowa and chose the Hawkeyes after he initially committed himself to Noordiowa.
Sage, a 6-foot-7 wing, signed at Drake and chose to follow McCollum to Iowa City. Peyton McCollum, the son of Ben McCollum, is a 6-foot-2 point watch and has to contribute to the depth of the Roster.
The switch from the fairly flowing attacking style from McCaffery to the deliberate, grind-it-out-style of McCollum will be a shocking change for Big Ten fans. The Drake team of McCollum was 364th national at the adapted pace, by Kenpom.com. The new look Hawkeyes will concentrate on limiting possessions, touching the attacking glass and reaching the free spinning line while turnover and limiting second chance points is forced.
Bottom Line: Iowa is a potential NCAA tournament team under McCollum, which has one of the best point guards in the sport in Stirtz to lead his first Hawkeye selection. The Hawkeyes will be below par and have no top half of the League talent. However, that may not matter with McCollum at the helm. He was able to beat an opponent with superior talent in last year’s NCAA tournament win against Missouri and has national-winning experience at the D2 level.
Sacrifice: “Returning to Iowa City as head coach of the Hawkeyes is a dream come true for me and my family. The passion of Hawkeye fans is unparalleled and I am incredibly excited to start this new journey together.” – McCollum last spring after he was called Iowa’s head coach.
(Photocredit: Iowa Athletics)
See more: Comments, 2025-26 Big Ten Preview, Iowa Hawkeyes
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