Iowa men's basketball wants to keep playing in Des Moines, against a big-time opponent

IOWA CITY — The city of Des Moines is in Ben McCollum’s past. It’ll be in his present Saturday afternoon.

The University of Iowa men's basketball coach hopes it’ll be in his future as well.

McCollum wants his Hawkeyes to continue playing games at Casey’s Center, formerly known as Wells Fargo Arena. Iowa plays Bucknell there at 5 p.m. Saturday

Iowa last played at Casey’s Center in 2023, beating Florida A&M. Of course, the four Division I schools in the state (Iowa, Iowa State, Northern Iowa and Drake) used to gather in the capital city for a December doubleheader.

That’s not going to happen anymore. But McCollum, who came to Iowa this season after spending last season as head coach at Drake, said he’d like to continue to play in Des Moines moving forward.

Against better quality opponents than Bucknell and Florida A&M.

“Yeah, I'd like to do it with a power-five team,” McCollum said. “This (game) was scheduled before we got here. It was scheduled with a different team, and so it was just, it was (against) a good friend of mine. So I'm like, I don't really want to play my friend and in Des Moines, so we switched it.

“And at that point, all the power-fives, you know, we couldn't get one ... But, yeah, we would love to do that. We would love to do that with power-five competition.”

Iowa is 9-2, off to its best start to a season since 2020-21 (12-2). Its two losses were on the road to top-10 teams Iowa State (No. 4) and Michigan State (No. 7).

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There were a lot of questions about how this team would fare considering the entirely new coaching staff and roster, Cooper Koch the only returning player. Six guys came with McCollum from Drake, as did freshman Tate Sage, who was originally a Drake signee.

McCollum flipped freshman recruit Trevin Jirak from Northern Iowa to Iowa. Brendan Hausen (Kansas State) and Alvaro Folgueiras (Robert Morris) were brought in from the transfer portal.

“You know, I don't get surprised a lot, Only because I don't create expectations, if that makes sense,” McCollum said. “There are expectations for practice on how hard you're going to work, but the expectation that this result is going to happen, I just don't do that a lot. Are you going to win the conference? Are you going to make the NCAA tournament? I don't know. You just don't know those things.

“And so if you don't create these goals that you don't have any control over, then nothing really surprises you. It is what it is. It is what happens today, and that's just what it is.”

Iowa has one more non-conference game after Saturday, hosting Massachusetts-Lowell next weekend. Then it’s nothing but Big Ten play from there on out, beginning with a home game Jan. 3 against UCLA.

The Hawkeyes split their early Big Ten games, losing at Michigan State and beating Maryland at home.

“Am I pleased with some things?” McCollum said. “Yeah, things to be pleased with, I think the toughness that they've shown, the ability to transition from, for some of them, from Drake to here, and then the ability for those other guys to come in and acclimate themselves quick. It's a lot harder than you think, and then to kind of face the external noise and then block that out. It's been great. They've done a good job of that.”

Comments: jeff.johnson@thegazette.com