By Pat Harty

Iowa City, Iowa – It would be easy to assume with Ben McCollum having coached at Drake this past season that he would be all for having Drake and Northern Iowa back on Iowa’s nonconference schedule.

But that isn’t the case, at least right now.

Iowa held an introductory press conference for McCollum on Tuesday and he was asked about scheduling and about playing Drake and Northern Iowa again.

Iowa stopped playing both Drake and Northern Iowa in home-and-away series in 2012, as did Iowa State.

Former Iowa head coach Fran McCaffery said part of the reason was to give Iowa more nonconference scheduling flexibility.

“Specific to Drake or UNI, good question,” McCollum said. “I don’t know on that. It probably depends on if that allows us to make the NCAA Tournament better.

“Now, there are some unique situations that you will play, just because it’s fun for the fans, and that might be number three as well. I’m not afraid of those either.”

McCollum said he wants to play a nonconference schedule that will prepare Iowa for the stretch drive, and for postseason.

“I would say scheduling wise, you want to put yourself in the best position, one, to have your team be at their best in March.” McCollum said. “So if you need — that specific team, if they need to play a top-tier team, then you schedule that. If you need to play a bunch of teams that are not quite as good to build confidence, then you do that. So you schedule with that in mind first.

“The second part of that is you need to schedule to make the NCAA Tournament. So obviously there’s the net rankings, and there’s a lot of mathematics that go into that. Obviously, your Quad 4s is, you beat a bunch of Quad 4s by a lot of points, going on the road versus a Quad 3 or Quad 2 doesn’t make a lot of sense just from an analytic standpoint to be able to make that NCAA Tournament.”

Iowa’s nonconference schedule has been criticized for having too many overmatched opponents and too many home games in which the outcome is all but decided before the game even starts.

Home attendance was at a 60-year low this season and that’s part of the reason Fran McCaffery was fired as the Iowa head coach after 15 seasons.

Iowa Athletic Director Beth Goetz zeroed in on McCollum after letting Fran McCaffery go, and now McCollum is determined to bring back the fans, and to have Carver-Hawkeye Arena rocking again, with or without playing Drake and Northern Iowa in a home-and-away series.

Iowa and Iowa State used to play Drake and Northern Iowa in Des Moines, rotating between the two Missouri Valley opponents each year.

“In taking this job, I’ve always felt like you needed to take a job that you can win championships and compete for them on a consistent level. Beth Goetz has given me that opportunity and given resources to make sure that we can do just that, and that’s our goal is to get Carver-Hawkeye Arena filled back up, to create an environment where other fans want to come and to be the best venue in the State of Iowa. And we’re going to fight for that. We’re going to compete for that. We’ve done that at other schools, and hopefully we can do that here.”