Ben McCollum Has Led the Iowa Hawkeyes to the Promised Land in Year One
In exactly one year at the helm of Iowa basketball, Ben McCollum has shifted the style of play and the culture of the Hawkeyes.
TAMPA, FLORIDA - MARCH 22: Head coachBen McCollum of the Iowa Hawkeyes and Alvaro Folgueiras #7 of the Iowa Hawkeyes reacts to winning the second round of the 2026 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament against the Florida Gators held at Benchmark International Arena on March 22, 2026 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Tyler Schank/NCAA Photos via Getty Images) | NCAA Photos via Getty Images 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.
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