The intriguing part about Iowa men’s basketball’s season opener against Robert Morris on Tuesday is that nobody knows what to expect. Not even head coach Ben McCollum, who admitted he’ll use tomorrow’s game to figure out rotations – outside of Bennett Stirtz, he joked.
“I don’t know that we have a set even yet, to be perfectly honest,” he said. “I think we’re just trying to figure that out because it’s always different in practice than it is in a game, and especially one where you know that there’s a scoreboard.”
With the exception of redshirt freshman forward Cooper Koch, it’ll be everyone’s first game as a Hawkeye, players and coaches included. And outside of Koch and fourth-year guard and Kansas State transfer Brendan Hausen, it will be the first Division I action for the roster.
Given the circumstances, the internal outlook is that there will be some growing pains.
“Obviously, we got to get the W but there’s gonna be some ugly parts of it, and it’s the first game of the year, just like everyone else,” Stirtz said. “We’re gonna learn a lot tomorrow, just with people who we can play.”
Third-year forward Alvaro Folgueiras transferred from Robert Morris to Iowa and will now face his former team in his first college game away from the program. The reigning Horizon League Player of the Year is expected to take on a key role after averaging just over 14 points and nine rebounds a game on 55 percent shooting last season.
He expressed at media availability on Monday that he holds a special place in his heart for the Colonials and head coach Andrew Toole, who he said saw something in him before anyone else did.
“[I] got to take the game [as a] professional, but also with a sense of respect to a team and coach that gave me everything,” Folgueiras said. “It was my only offer, and they gave me the chance to show the rest of the people in the NCAA that they were wrong about me coming out of high school.”
Offensive questions
McCollum has conditioned his group to be wary of Robert Morris’ intensity in all facets of the game. Not only does the program have a history of being a great rebounding team, he expects to see strong guard play offensively and mixing defensive schemes throughout.
“All their guards have the ultimate green light to be able to do what they need to do,” McCollum said. “Then defensively, they showed mostly man. My guess is they’ll have some type of zone in and so we’ll have to be ready for that as well.”
The players and coaching staff have been adamant about the defensive intensity the team showed throughout the summer, training camp, and a few secret scrimmages. Offensively, however, is still a question mark.
“We’re just tuning everything up, especially the offense,” Stirtz said. “The defense has always been there, but obviously we still need to work on it.”
Stirtz, coming off a season where he averaged nearly 20 points a game at Drake, will presumably take over as the number one option offensively for Iowa. There should be some preexisting chemistry considering the roster is made up of six players from McCollum’s Drake squad.
It’s more about building that with the new guys, mainly Folgueiras and Hausen, who should take some of the scoring load off of Stirtz. Forward Cam Manyawu and guards Tavion Banks and Kael Combs, who all followed McCollum to Iowa City, should see opportunities as well.
“Nothing’s going to be perfect, and there’s going to be some bad moments, there’s gonna be some good moments,” Stirtz said. “So just keeping a level head through all those moments, win or lose, just keep moving forward.”