The Iowa Hawkeyes ought to really feel glorious about their new males’s basketball head coach. He can seemingly win anyplace and with anybody.
On Monday, ESPN’s Pete Thamel and Jeff Borzello reported Iowa has agreed to a deal to make Drake’s Ben McCollum its subsequent coach.
In 2024, McCollum assumed HC duties at Drake when Darian DeVries (now with Indiana) left for West Virginia. A lot of DeVries’ gamers, together with his son Tucker, adopted him.
McCollum served as HC at Division II college Northwest Missouri State from 2009-24, the place he gained 4 nationwide championships. He introduced a few of his gamers to overtake Drake’s roster.
4 of the Bulldogs’ 5 starters this season (guards Isaiah Jackson, Bennett Stirtz, Mitch Mascari and ahead Daniel Abreu) performed for McCollum at Northwest Missouri State. Drake did not backslide with the brand new squad. It improved.
McCollum and Co. gained the Missouri Valley Convention regular-season and event titles. Within the NCAA Match, the No. 11 seed Bulldogs upset the No. 6 seed Missouri Tigers 67-57 within the first spherical, advancing to the spherical of 32 for the primary time since 1971. They misplaced to No. 3 seed Texas Tech 77-64 on Saturday.
Drake went 31-4, ending with the most wins in a season in class historical past. McCollum gained MVC Coach of the 12 months and was named a semifinalist for Naismith Coach of the 12 months.
McCollum will substitute Fran McCaffery at Iowa, who was fired after the Hawkeyes went 17-16 this season and missed the Huge Dance for a second consecutive 12 months. In 15 seasons with the Hawkeyes, McCaffery gained a program-record 297 video games and made seven NCAA Tournaments however made no Candy 16s.
With McCollum on the helm, maybe the Hawkeyes will rebound quickly. Fast turnarounds seem to be his specialty.
