Mike Hlas

Thanks to portal defections, the Robert Morris team that pushed Alabama hard in the NCAA tournament won’t resemble the one that plays at Iowa in seven months.

Josh Sash, Bryston Williams follow McCollum from Des Moines to Iowa City

It’s a team that was in the NCAA tournament this season and won 26 games. But it won’t bear any resemblance to its 2024-25 version.

Many holes to fill on Ben McCollum’s first Hawkeyes team.

Freshman was in Iowa’s playing rotation until health issues put a premature end to his season after 10 appearances.

Also, Fran McCaffery will get Penn playing better than it has in recent years, and Payton Sandfort dealt with a lot physically yet played every game this season.

Sophomore from Moline, Ill, averaged 8.8 points and 5.3 assists for Iowa this season.

Fifteen years after making NCAA tournament lore for Northern Iowa, Farokhmanesh’s coaching career advances with the promotion at Colorado State.

Iowa’s leader in scoring and rebounding average joins Greg McDermott’s program.

The new Hawkeyes men’s basketball coach’s mother, Mary Timko, got her master’s and law degrees at Iowa before being an assistant county attorney. She then served for 33 years as a District Court judge in northwest Iowa.

Less than two weeks after his dismissal at Iowa following 15 years there, it looks like McCaffery will become the head coach at his Penn alma mater

McCollum was a Hawkeye basketball fan, a Hawkeye basketball summer camper, and now is the Hawkeyes’ men’s basketball coach with a 6-year contract and a message for his new team: “Impose your will.”

Craig Doty went head-to-head with McCollum when they coached in the same Division II conference. “We built our roster and our defensive system with the goal of taking them down,“ Doty said.

McCollum, born in Iowa City and raised in Storm Lake, has won 81.8 percent of his games in his 15-year college coaching career.

Iowa State was flying close to the sun in January, but was earthbound the last several weeks as injuries took a toll. Then they got bounced out of the NCAA tourney in a hard way by Ole Miss.