Near the end of the 2024-25 Iowa men’s basketball season, there was increasing speculation that this would be the final year of the Fran McCaffery era.
Those assumptions turned out to be correct, as athletics director Beth Goetz fired McCaffery on March 14, one day after his Hawkeyes were blown out in the second round of the Big Ten tournament. As the search for McCaffery’s replacement ramped up, there were two names that were seen as the frontrunners for the job – West Virginia head coach Darian DeVries and Drake head coach Ben McCollum.
Both coaches were at the top of my short list, but I considered DeVries as the odds on favorite due to his experience in Division I and his personal and familial ties to the state of Iowa and the Hawkeyes. But before Goetz could make any moves, DeVries bolted for Big Ten rival Indiana, forcing Iowa to look elsewhere.
DeVries’ decision soured the minds of Hawkeye fans, but his choice may have been a blessing in disguise for Iowa. Goetz swiftly switched gears to McCollum, and he was hired as the 23rd head coach in Hawkeye basketball history on Monday morning.
The news delighted Iowa fans, but one year earlier, most of them probably had not even heard McCollum’s name. That’s because McCollum was just making his foray into Division I coaching by taking a Drake job he had longed to take. Much of the roster had entered the transfer portal after DeVries’ departure to West Virginia, but McCollum filled the void by bringing several of his players from his Division II Northwest Missouri State squad with him to Des Moines.
The Bulldogs didn’t have high expectations entering the season, but that didn’t stop them from posting one of the best seasons in school history. Drake won a school-record 31 games, both the Missouri Valley Conference regular season and tournament titles, and even advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 1971.
Despite McCollum’s success in Des Moines, there were some Iowa fans still concerned about the thought of hiring a coach with only one season of Division I basketball under his belt.
Consider those ideas moot points.
McCollum comes to Iowa City with a remarkable career coaching record 426-95, a winning percentage that totals out to .818. Let me repeat that again. McCollum has coached college basketball for 16 seasons and has won over 80 percent of his games. And not only does McCollum win, he does it on the biggest stage, with four Division II national titles at Northwest Missouri State bearing his name.
Winning is one thing, but the thing that probably stood out the most in McCollum’s introductory press conference was his deep love for Hawkeye basketball. Hailing from Storm Lake, McCollum was just one of many Iowans in the ’90s that religiously watched Iowa basketball games either on TV or inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
“Ben idolized Chris Street, attended Hawkeye basketball camps, and he can list almost every Hawkeye starter for the last three-plus decades,” Goetz said at McCollum’s introductory presser on Tuesday.
“Some of these former players are, again, they were my idols growing up,” McCollum later said. “Like the NBA I didn’t watch. I watched the Iowa Hawkeyes.”
That passion and love for the program is what makes McCollum’s hire a grand slam. The Hawkeyes have a rich history on the court, but waning attendance and support in the final years of McCaffery’s tenure was likely the primary reason for his firing. The narrative in the national media is that Iowa fans don’t care about men’s basketball, and that’s not true.
The Hawkeye faithful are eagerly waiting to pack Carver-Hawkeye again, but they just need a reason to do so.
McCollum is that reason. He knows the Hawkeyes’ history, he knows the special environment Carver-Hawkeye once was and what it can still be, and he understands how to connect not only with Iowa fans, but also the entire state. That’s how you revitalize a lost fanbase.
“I would like to see a full Carver,” McCollum said. “I would like to see fans out there. I’ve seen full at other sports. I want to make sure that we put a good product out there so that fans enjoy it and we show what Iowa is like.”
McCollum’s first season as the Head Hawk is still months away, but after watching his press conference, I’m convinced that the Hawkeyes have their man.