The Short List: Ben McCollum [Now Free]

With Plan A off the board, Plan B doesn't look so bad.

With Ben McCollum now officially Iowa’s next basketball coach, I’m taking the paywall off of last week’s Short List post and opening the comments. More to come on the future of Iowa hoops in the next couple of days.

Iowa entered this hiring cycle in a rare position. Whereas the last two basketball coaching searches didn’t have an obvious choice on the board, this search had two. With Darian DeVries off the board to Indiana, we turn to the other hot name with obvious ties to the program, Drake coach Ben McCollum.

McCollum was born in Iowa City and raised in Storm Lake, Iowa. He spent two years playing basketball at North Iowa Area Community College in Mason City before transferring to Northwest Missouri State to finish his career. He graduated in 2003, immediately went into coaching, and spent six years as an assistant before taking over his alma mater in 2009. He wasn’t an immediate success — NMSU went 22-31 over his first two seasons in charge — but the eventual success was massive. Over thirteen campaigns from 2011-2024, McCollum’s Bearcats won four national championships,¹ twelve conference championships, nine conference tournament championships and twelve NCAA Tournament appearances. If you cut it down to his last eight seasons, his teams went a staggering 253-21 overall and 150-14 in its conference. At one point, he went six consecutive seasons with one NCAA tournament loss.

When Darian DeVries left Drake for West Virginia, he left a significant hole to fill. Tucker DeVries went with him to Morgantown, and three other starters entered the transfer portal and moved to Power 5 programs. Drake hired McCollum, and McCollum brought his NMSU squad north with him, including a recruit out of Kansas City who had signed with the Bearcats, as well as a pair of transfers from Wyoming who came with assistant Bryston Williams².

Obviously, the Northwest Missouri State guys did just fine. Drake went 30-3 this year, won the Missouri Valley Conference regular season and tournament, and got an 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament³. The Bulldogs went undefeated in the non-conference season, and won a November holiday tournament over Miami, Vanderbilt and Florida Atlantic. They knocked off Kansas State in Kansas City in December, as well. Drake’s three losses were by a combined 13 points, none by double digits. As good as DeVries was, McCollum’s one-year record was even better.

McCollum’s sustained success has been built primarily at the defensive end. Drake was 46th nationally in defensive efficiency this year, first in steals, tenth in turnovers generated, and 25th in defensive rebounding percentage. The Bulldogs were undersized in the interior and got battered for it, permitting 54 percent shooting on two-point attempts and committing a ton of fouls, but the turnover margin and limited second-chance opportunities more than offset those deficiencies. McCollum’s Northwest Missouri State teams finished first in Massey’s Division II defense metric in each of his last nine years there. His final team was ranked 43rd in defense across all of college basketball; by comparison, Iowa was 208th in defense that year.

That’s a lot of winning, but it doesn’t come without concerns. The Drake success was obviously microwaved from McCollum’s transfers, a scenario he’s unlikely to replicate at the Big Ten level. A staggering 81 percent of total minutes played by Drake this year were played by an NMSU transfer; by contrast, DeVries holdovers played just 4.5 percent of total minutes. Junior point guard Bennett Stirtz played all but 16 minutes for Drake this season, the highest percentage of minutes played by any single player in Division I this season; senior Mitch Mascari sat out just 44 minutes all year, the second-highest percentage of minutes of any player. In order to keep his starters in the game that much — and keep his bench short — McCollum’s squad played at the nation’s slowest pace. In fact, it wasn’t just the slowest pace of play this season: Drake’s 58.8 possessions per game were the lowest total in Division I since the shot clock was reduced to 30 seconds after the 2014-15 season. McCollum has said he doesn’t prefer to play that slow (clip below), but was forced into it by his limited roster, caused because he got the job late after a deep run in the Division II tournament and inherited just two holdovers.

Slow pace works when done well — just look at Tony Bennett’s run at Virginia, or Bo Ryan at Wisconsin — but McCollum would have an unusually small window with an already-fickle fan base if he doesn’t win immediately. Todd Lickliter was fifteen years ago, but it’s not that far removed for fans traumatized by the experience. Style of play doesn’t trump winning, but for a program in desperate need of a shot in the arm, bleeding the shot clock might not be the most ideal selling point. McCollum is also likely inheriting yet another roster decimated by transfers, but without the benefit of a Big Ten roster to bring along with him. He’d have to hit the portal hard — with a limited NIL budget and even more limited experience in using it — just to approach competitiveness in Year One, and if things don’t improve by Year Three, look out below.

None of this is enough to overlook McCollum’s absurd record of winning. As with DeVries, he has ties to the state, and the rumors that McCollum sees Iowa as a prime destination are stronger than those from DeVries. As with DeVries, he has a track record of success, and is a lifetime college coach. His buyout will be a considerably smaller financial lift — Drake’s private, so details aren’t readily available, but it’s likely less than $2 million to buy out the whole thing — and the buzz around his candidacy is at or near DeVries’ level. McCollum held out for fifteen years for the right opportunity before. If Iowa is the right opportunity this time, he’s the obvious choice.

1. It likely would have been five were it not for Covid: NMSU entered the 2020 postseason at 31-1 with a 1 seed and a home regional.

2. One of McCollum’s other Drake assistants: Josh Sash, the brother of Tyler Jimmer-Jammin’ Sash.

3. They’re playing Mizzou, as if they needed any more motivation.