For the first time since 1999, the Iowa men’s basketball team is in the Sweet Sixteen. Despite entering the NCAA Tournament having lost seven of its last ten games, the Hawkeyes managed to upset both #8 seed Clemon and #1 seed Florida, the defending national champion. The architect of these victories was first-year head coach Ben McCollum, whose expertly tailored game plans were executed to perfection by his team. McCollum has accomplished in one season what Iowa’s last three coaches and several
more talented Hawkeye teams than this one failed to do: reach the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament.
The specter of the Sweet Sixteen has haunted Iowa basketball for over two decades. Iowa parted ways with Tom Davis after his run to the Sweet Sixteen in the 1998-99 season in favor of Steve Alford, a rising coaching star who was hired to similarly raise Iowa’s competitive ceiling. Instead, Alford won one NCAA Tournament game in eight seasons, with his talented 2005-06 squad losing to #14 seed Northwestern State on a halfcourt heave at the end of regulation. Alford’s successor, Todd Lickliter, fared even worse, failing to sniff the NCAA Tournament in his three abysmal years in Iowa City. While Fran McCaffery succeeded in restoring the Hawkeyes to respectability, his teams had a habit of underperforming in March. After years of either getting blasted by #2 seeds in the Round of 32 or losing in heartbreaking fashion to Tennessee in overtime (yes, that happened more than once), Iowa finally attained higher seeds in the 2021 and 2022 tournaments. Unfortunately, both squads squandered their favorable positions by losing to lower-ranked teams. The Hawkeyes seemed destined to an eternity watching the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament from their couches.
Iowa finally changed its fate by hiring Ben McCollum. The Hawkeye coach has his team playing defense at a championship level, frustrating both Clemson and Florida with its physical yet disciplined style of play. Under McCaffery, Iowa’s vaunted offenses had a nasty habit of going cold during the NCAA Tournament, which proved to be a death sentence for a program that underemphasized defense and repeatedly found itself unprepared to win games when its shots weren’t falling. McCollum’s Hawkeye team, however, has been more than comfortable winning games in the muck, intentionally slowing the pace of the game and trusting that its discipline on both ends of the court will allow its players to make plays when it matters the most. This year’s Iowa team may not be lighting the world on fire offensively, but McCollum seems to have found a winning formula that works for this roster.
In many ways, Iowa’s two tournament wins have been classic McCollum ball, built on the same excellent defense and a slow, deliberate style of offense the Hawkeyes have employed all season. Yet these wins have also been departures from the norm in very important ways. Despite ranking 358th out of 365 teams in rebounds per game, Iowa managed to outrebound both of its NCAA Tournament opponents, including a Florida team that leads the nation in rebounding and started three players of 6’9” or taller. The ferocity with which the undersized Hawkeyes have attacked the glass has been a significant driver of their success and speaks to the tremendous intensity with which McCollum has his team playing.
Iowa’s sudden rebounding renaissance has proven even more important considering its offensive star’s recent shooting woes. Bennett Stirtz has been a reliable scorer for Iowa all year but has been abysmal from the field in the tournament, making only 9-33 field goal attempts and shooting 3-19 from three. Iowa’s offense has been very Stirtz-dependent, and the Hawks winning NCAA Tournament games with him in a shooting slump would have seemed impossible a few weeks ago. However, Stirtz’s gravitational effect on defenses has created opportunities for his teammates to get open shots and capitalize on the disproportionate attention he draws from his opponents. Stirtz’s presence on the court has helped enable big scoring games from Tavion Banks, Cooper Koch, and especially Alvaro Folgueiras, who hit the winning shot against Florida. Folgueiras’ scoring has jumped from 8.5 points per game to 14 in the tournament, and his game-winner against the Gators came on an open three pointer resulting from the defense collapsing to stop Stirtz’s drive to the hoop. Iowa’s star player has found a way to significantly impact games even when his shot is not falling, and that has made all the difference in Iowa’s postseason success.
How long can the Hawkeyes sustain this postseason magic? Iowa’s Sweet Sixteen opponent is Nebraska, a team the Hawkeyes previously beat 57-52 in Iowa City and lost to 84-75 on the road in overtime. Both programs have been positively starved for postseason success (Nebraska had never won an NCAA Tournament game before last week) and are highly motivated to keep their seasons alive. Any Sweet Sixteen matchup Iowa could have drawn would have been intense. But playing your first Sweet Sixteen game in over 25 years against conference rival whose best player was a Hawkeye last season and whose coach has been a thorn in Iowa’s side for decades? It’s hard to imagine how this game could mean more to both fan bases.
Can Iowa gain an edge in the season series against the Cornhuskers? Like Iowa, Nebraska boasts one of the best defenses in the country. The Huskers have held opponents to 65.8 points per game (the 15th-fewest in the nation) and allowed them to shoot only 40% from the field, including 30% from three. While Stirtz is certainly due for a breakout shooting performance after two straight duds, relief may be hard to come by in this game, considering he shot only 37% from the field against Nebraska this season. The Hawkeyes did manage to outrebound Nebraska in both games and could similarly hope to crash the boards in this matchup if they struggle to get good looks from the floor. Ball security will also play a critical role in this game; Iowa managed to force 12 turnovers both times it played the Huskers but also committed 19 of their own in their loss, which they cannot afford to do again. Furthermore, Iowa will need to hold Nebraska’s lethal three-point shooters such as Pryce Sandfort, Braden Frager, and Jamarques Lawrence in check, much as they did during the first matchup when they allowed the Huskers to shoot only 20% from beyond the arc. Ultimately, this game may come down to the coaching matchup between McCollum and Nebraska’s Fred Hoiberg. Both teams are evenly matched and have beaten each other in their own arenas; which coach can devise the best gameplan to secure a victory on the biggest stage this rivalry has seen yet?
Most experts expect Iowa’s season to come to an end sooner than later. Iowa is a slight underdog against Nebraska, and even if the Hawkeyes beat the Huskers, their next opponent will either be an Illinois team they lost to at home in January or a Houston squad that inexplicably gets to play the Sweet Sixteen and Elite 8 in its home city. Yet if Iowa can knock off the Gators in what was essentially a road game played in the state of Florida, who’s to say the Hawkeyes don’t have another surprise or two up their sleeves? Ben McCollum has already exceeded Iowa fans’ wildest expectations in his first year in Iowa City. Anyone betting against him and this Hawkeye team does so at their own peril.
