Ben McCollum says “dumb luck” led to him coaching Iowa men, but it’s not dumb or lucky

IOWA CITY -- Two years ago, Ben McCollum couldn’t have had an inkling he would coach at the highest level of college basketball and in his home state in 2025.

After 15 years at Northwest Missouri State, McCollum coached Drake to a 31-4 men’s basketball record and a Missouri Valley Conference championship last season. His time there was short-lived. The Iowa job opened in March and athletics director Beth Goetz offered it to him.

Fifteen years in Division II and one at a Division I mid-major isn’t a typical trajectory to a Big Ten job, but here we go Tuesday night when Iowa opens its 2025-26 season against Robert Morris in Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“I was going to play at the highest level of college basketball and never could,” McCollum said Monday. “Then once I got into coaching, I didn't really think about it.

“One of my assistants always gives me heck. He’s like ‘You always think that your grass is greener. ... Like wherever you’re at, you just think it’s better than everywhere else.’

“I think it’s actually a compliment. I’ve always seen it from that lens of looking internal and figuring out what you have and making that place as great as you could possibly make it, and not really having that outside eye.”

McCollum won four Division II national championships at Northwest Missouri. He wasn’t isolated from Division I athletics directors.

“I turned down a lot of jobs,” he said. “Since 2017, there’d probably be two, three, four a year. You’re just not interested. And then there’s a couple that you go down the path with, that you thought might be a good opportunity to spread your wings a little more, and then you’d stay.”

But when Darian DeVries left Drake for West Virginia, McCollum did spread his wings. Not only did he maintain the great success DeVries had there, but got the Bulldogs to the second round of the NCAA tournament.

Meanwhile, Goetz waited for Drake’s season to end. When it did, McCollum became the Hawkeyes’ coach shortly afterward.

“I don’t have any control over the fact the University of Iowa opened this year,” he said. “We just happened to have a good season at Drake and I just happened to take the Iowa job.

“It’s just dumb luck, you know, and I’m fortunate enough to be in that position.”

Dumb luck, of course, doesn’t win 81.7 percent of the 520 college games you’ve coached. Tuesday, McCollum starts running his stuff in Carver.

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