Iowa men’s basketball knocked off Xavier, 81-62, in Friday’s contest at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Despite some early lapses in the offense, the Hawkeye defense limited the Musketeers’ scoring runs to improve to 3-0 on the season.
“There’s going to be ebbs and flows to all of this,” Iowa head coach Ben McCollum said in his postgame press conference. “That’s really the fun part of it. If everything is just good, the good doesn’t seem as good, because there’s never any bad.”
Fifth-year Bennett Stirtz collected 21 points, followed by fourth-year Tavion Banks with 13 points. Third-year Kael Combs notched a season-high 11 points, as well as four rebounds and a team-high four assists. Iowa shot 56.9 percent from the floor and 27.3 percent from three-point range.
The Hawkeyes dominated down low, scoring a season-high 50 points in the paint and holding a 41-24 edge in the rebound department.
“In the Big Ten, if you don’t rebound, you’re not going to win any games,” McCollum said. “So you have to make sure you’re getting 50-50 balls and getting after it.”
First Half
Both squads were slow to start, with a combined six turnovers in the first two minutes of play. The Musketeers got on the board first before Hawkeye second-year Cooper Koch knocked in a two-point shot to tie it up, kicking off a 6-0 run for the Hawkeyes in just under a minute.
McCollum appeared visibly upset after Iowa lob passes sailed out-of-bounds, but said afterward Iowa’s early turnovers were, while uncharacteristic, were reasonable. He called the early miscues “game slippage,” adding the Hawkeyes were likely excited to play a power conference foe for the first time this season.
While the Musketeers were hampered by six turnovers and seven personal fouls in the first 10 minutes of play, the Hawkeyes kept their composure, opening the door for a slam dunk from 6-foot-7 first-year Tate Sage. Sage followed the dunk with a three-pointer minutes later.
Over the 2024-25 season, the Hawkeye defense allowed an average of 79.7 points per game. Robert Morris and Western Illinois, the first two games of the 2025-26 campaign, saw Iowa equipped with a stronger defense, the Colonials and Leathernecks averaging 63.5 points against the Hawkeyes.
This same defense created opportunities for Iowa early on. Not only did the Hawkeyes lead the Musketeers in points from turnovers, 12-2, but Iowa also forced Xavier into a scoring drought of more than three minutes to end the half, which ended on an 11-0 Iowa run.
Aided by a 12-point effort from Stirtz, the Hawkeyes took to the locker room at the half with a 45-29 lead, shooting 62.5 percent from the floor.
“It was a pretty slow start,” Stirtz said. “I thought we were overthinking it. They changed lineups, that was part of it. We were overthinking that. We adjusted, and I thought we came out good in the second part of the first half.”
Second Half
Stirtz’s first points of the second half grew his personal count to 14, as well as Iowa’s lead to 18 points, before Xavier retaliated with a 9-0 run in the span of just over a minute.
While a layup from third-year Cam Manyawu extended Iowa’s lead back into double figures, the gap cut down from 16 points to 11 points less than three minutes into the second half, prompting an Iowa timeout.
Coming out of the break, third-year Alvaro Folgueiras seized a defensive board from a missed three. The Málaga, Spain native drove straight into Musketeer territory to power in a layup, drawing a foul for an and-one.
Meanwhile, the Hawkeye defense continued to lock down, keeping the Musketeers scoreless for more than a minute at a time in multiple instances. While Iowa’s offense fueled as big a lead as 22 points in the second half, Xavier’s efforts fell short of the 50-point threshold until a layup with 7:44 left in play.
Iowa struggled with its own offense as the second half came to a close, with a jumper from Folgueiras breaking a Hawkeye scoring drought that spanned over four minutes. Despite this, Iowa’s sizable lead and early gains held through to the buzzer.
“Our ball screen coverage wasn’t great, partly because they played a different lineup than we expected, but we did guard the ball,” head coach Ben McCollum said. “I thought we won a lot of our one-on-one matchups. I thought our hand activity was pretty good. All in all, it’s a solid day, not our best, but we’re getting better.”
Up Next
Iowa stays at home for a matchup against Southeast Missouri State on Tuesday, Nov. 18, at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Tip-off is set for 7:30 p.m. on Big Ten Network. The Redhawks started the season 0-2, including a five-point loss to Missouri, before picking up their first win of the season against Webster.