A longtime fan, Ben McCollum aims to restore winning at Iowa

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Ben McCollum grew up a fan of the Iowa men’s basketball team. Now, he’s coaching the Hawkeyes.

McCollum was introduced as Iowa’s new head coach on Tuesday, a day after his hiring was announced by the university.

The Iowa native, born in Iowa City and raised in Storm Lake, replaces Fran McCaffery, the program’s all-time winningest coach fired at the end of the regular season after missing the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive year.

McCollum mentioned McCaffery, as well as other former Iowa coaches like Lute Olson, George Raveling and Tom Davis, and credited them with building the program.

“Hopefully it’s in great hands right now, that we can bring championships to the University of Iowa,” McCollum said.

McCollum comes to Iowa after leading Drake to a 31-4 record that included the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament championships in his one season there. The Bulldogs reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament, losing to Texas Tech in the second round on Saturday.

A day later, McCollum was in discussions with Iowa athletics director Beth Goetz about taking over the Hawkeyes.

McCollum has “an exceptional mind for the game,” Goetz said. “Ben has roots here. And to be sure, that’s a special part of the story, but not why I thought Ben was a perfect leader for this program. Coach is a proven winner.”

McCollum has a 426-95 record in his 16 years as a college head coach. He won four NCAA Division II national championships at Northwest Missouri State — winning at least 21 games in each of his last 13 years there — before going to Drake at the end of last season.

McCollum now takes over an Iowa program that went 17-16 this season and finished in a tie for 12th in the Big Ten at 7-13.

“I always felt like you needed to take a job where you can win championships and compete with them on a consistent level,” McCollum said. “Beth Goetz has given me the opportunity, and given me the resources to make sure we can do just that.”

McCollum was greeted outside of Carver-Hawkeye Arena by Iowa cheerleaders and approximately 75 students wearing white shirts and gold ties, playing off the look of white shirts and blue ties that McCollum wore while coaching at Drake.

One of McCollum’s biggest tasks will be trying to restore interest in the men’s basketball program. Iowa’s average attendance in the 14,988-seat Carver-Hawkeye Arena was 9.161, but there were times, especially during nonconference play, when the arena wasn’t even half full.

“That’s our goal, to get Carver-Hawkeye filled back up,” McCollum said. “To create an environment where other fans want to come, and to be the best venue in the state of Iowa. We’re going to fight for that, we’re going to compete for that. We’ve done that at other schools, and we’re going to do that here.”

McCollum will have to rebuild a roster that became mostly empty after McCaffery’s firing. Seven players are in the NCAA’s transfer portal, including leading scorer and rebounder Owen Freeman and guard Josh Dix, who was third on the team in scoring. McCollum said he would try to lure as many of those players back as possible.

“Tough kids win,” McCollum said when asked about what he learned from having to rebuild Drake’s roster last offseason. “Connected groups win. Kids that work with a level of humility win. That hasn’t changed. So with the portal, you have to make sure you have to identify those intangibles. The physical gifts are pretty easy to identify.”

The program McCollum grew up watching is now his to lead.

“I’ll make sure to not take this for granted,” he said. “I’m going to fight for Iowa, and we’re going to get this thing going again.”