By Aidan Joly
It was a true had-to-have-it moment for the Iowa Hawkeyes, and Ben McCollum had the last needed piece to the puzzle.
Down one with eight seconds to go against the defending national champions, everyone expected the ball to go to Bennett Stirtz, Iowa’s leading scorer and its best player by a somewhat considerable margin.
McCollum didn’t make the expected move. He got the ball first to Stirtz, who then passed to Alvaro Folgueiras, who nailed a corner three to beat defending national champion Florida and send Iowa to its first Sweet 16 since 1999.
There should be no more doubting Ben McCollum now. In his first year with the Hawkeyes there were still some doubters even as recently as a few weeks ago, coming to a head when Iowa took an ugly loss to basement dweller Penn State on Feb. 28, the first of three losses in a row for the Hawkeyes to close out the regular season.
Iowa won a game in the Big Ten tournament, beat Clemson in the first round of the tournament, and then stunned the top-seeded Gators, denying them a second straight national title.
All Ben McCollum does is win. After a so-so playing career he got into the coaching ranks. He took over Division II Northwest Missouri State as a 27-year-old in 2009, beginning his empire. At Northwest Missouri he won 11 straight conference championships and four national titles. Then, he finally got his chance at the Division I level at Drake last season, going 31-4, winning a conference title, and winning a tournament game.
After just one year there he got his shot at the power conference level. He took a group mostly compromised of former mid-major and Division II players, won 20 games in the regular season with a roster that really had no business doing so, and now is in the second weekend of the NCAA tournament. He does it now at 44 years old.
Some believed that somewhere in the middle of the regular season Iowa had hit its ceiling. A 9-seed in the tournament was good but not great. Maybe it could win a game, but it wasn’t going to be a giant-killer.
Wrong. The brilliance of the coach who waited so long for his opportunity cannot be understated in the final seconds of the game against Florida. Heading to the second weekend of the tournament was something that his predecessor, longtime Iowa hoops coach Fran McCaffery, could not accomplish in his 15 seasons at the helm. McCollum did it in year one. It’s the definition of a proven winner.
Now, Iowa will see a familiar rival in its Sweet 16 game in Houston on Thursday night – Nebraska. The two met in the regular season finale on March 8, the Cornhuskers coming out with an 84-75 win.
If Iowa can pull off another upset on Thursday night and send Iowa to the Elite Eight, it would send Iowa City, McCollum’s hometown no less, into pandemonium. The Hawkeyes have not been to the Elite Eight since 1987.
It’s at a point where no matter what happens, McCollum’s coaching job has not only been among the best of first-year head coaches, but anywhere in the country. And he is helping deliver an unforgettable season for the Hawkeyes. One thing is for sure: if you didn’t know about him then, you sure do know about him now.
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