Iowa hires McCollum, who swept Missouri Valley titles and won NCAA game in his one season at Drake

By Canadian Press on March 24, 2025.

Ben McCollum, who led Drake’s dominating run through the Missouri Valley Conference and a win in the NCAA Tournament in his only season with the Bulldogs, was named head coach at Iowa on Monday.

Iowa spokesman Matt Weitzel confirmed McCollum’s hiring 10 days after athletic director Beth Goetz fired Fran McCaffery and two days after McCollum wrapped up a 31-4 season with a loss to Texas Tech in the second round of the West Regional.

McCollum takes over for McCaffery, who was fired after the Hawkeyes went 17-16 and had their lowest Big Ten regular-season finish in seven years. Iowa also has seen a steep decline in attendance the last two years.

The 43-year-old McCollum’s ties to the Hawkeye State run deep. He was born in Iowa City, raised in Storm Lake and played junior college basketball in Mason City.

When he left the state, he didn’t go far. He finished his college playing days at Northwest Missouri State and was an assistant at Emporia State in Kansas. He went back to Northwest Missouri in 2008 for his first head coaching job and won four Division II national championships in 15 seasons.

With four Northwest Missouri players heading to Drake with McCollum, the Bulldogs became one of the top stories in college basketball this season. They were dubbed “Division II Drake” by some, a moniker that only served to motivate the team.

All four of the Northwest Missouri transfers were starters and one of them, Bennett Stirtz, led the Missouri Valley in scoring and was named conference player of the year and most outstanding player of the MVC Tournament.

The Bulldogs were picked fifth in the 12-team Valley and received no first-place votes. They ended up winning the regular-season championship by two games with 17 conference wins, their most ever. Then they won the Valley tournament to run their overall win total to a school-record 30 in 33 games.

Next was a 67-57 win over Missouri in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

McCollum coaches a grinding style. The Bulldogs’ tempo was slowest in the nation. Offensive rebounding is emphasized. The defense allows 58.4 points per game, fewest in the nation. Just over 1 in 5 opponent possessions ends with a turnover.

“Death by a thousand paper cuts,” McCollum called his system.

The Bulldogs knocked off Miami, Vanderbilt and Kansas State on their way to a 12-0 start. Drake dropped back-to-back games before reeling off 11 straight MVC wins.

McCaffery was Iowa’s all-time wins leader and, at 15 years, the longest-tenured coach in program history. The Hawkeyes dropped seven of nine games in February and didn’t qualify for the Big Ten Tournament until the last day of the regular season.

The program has struggled to attract elite talent because of its shallow pool of funds for name, image and likeness compensation.

Since McCaffery’s firing, seven players have announced they would enter the transfer portal.

Iowa’s men were 10th in the Big Ten in average paid attendance this season, at 9,161 per game, though actual crowds appeared significantly less. That’s an 8% drop from last season and 26% drop from 2022-23.

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Eric Olson, The Associated Press

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