By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – When Ben McCollum isn’t building his roster, adding to his support staff, doing media interviews, searching for a new house and for new schools for his three children, hopefully, he’s working on convincing Iowa Athletic Director Beth Goetz to move the student section in Carver-Hawkeye Arena closer to the court.

It’s easy to tell the UI administration how to spend their money, but this is a move that is long overdue and the timing is right.

The disconnect with fans is one of the main reasons Fran McCaffery was fired as the Iowa head coach in mid-March after 15 seasons.

Carver-Hawkeye Arena was two-thirds empty for most of the games this past season as home attendance for Iowa men’s basketball sunk to a 60-year low.

The Iowa student section was often just rows and rows of empty seats during games.

Iowa even offered cheap beer for students of legal drinking age for one home game this past season, but it had little effect.

Apathy is hard to cure once it seeps into a program’s foundation.

It often takes something drastic such as a head coaching change to re-energize the fan base.

That’s why Iowa should move the student section closer to courtside and have it wrap around both teams’ benches with 10 to 15 rows of bleachers.

By using bleachers, it might help limit costs and would make it so the students would prefer to stand during games, which should be the desired effect.

The 2025-26 season doesn’t start for another six months, so there should be enough time to make the structural changes because it wouldn’t require a significant renovation.

And while some donors might have to relocate to make room for the students to be closer to the court, that seems like a small price to pay if it helps to improve Iowa’s game-day atmosphere, which right now leaves much to be desired.

The Iowa students are mostly an afterthought during home games, sort of out of sight, out of mind.

The student section is currently located behind the basket that is farthest from the Iowa bench, and it stretches from the ground to the concourse with the seats arranged more vertically than horizontally.

Unless the television cameras make it a point to show the Iowa student section during games, rarely are the students ever shown on television.

Michigan State, on the other hand, has its student section, which is famously known as “The Izzone,” located directly behind both teams’ benches, making it highly visible on television.

Illinois and Michigan have similar setups in which both student sections wrap around courtside and are highly visible on television during games.

There were a number of Iowa students that showed up outside Carver-Hawkeye Arena to greet McCollum when he was introduced as the Iowa head coach in late March. Many of the students wore white button down shirts and gold ties in honor of McCollum’s long-standing game-day coaching attire.

It makes sense to think that the Iowa students would dress the same for home games this coming season.

So, imagine having hundreds of students jumping up and down and screaming from the courtside bleachers and with all of them, even the female students, wearing white shirts and ties. The students would be highly visible on television if the student section were located directly behind both teams’ benches.

The goal of every student section should be to cause a distraction and to create a hostile environment for the visiting team without crossing the line of accepted behavior.

And to help achieve that goal, Iowa should move the student section closer to the court.

Goetz already has said that such a move is being considered.

Now the time is right to finally just do it.