By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – First-year Iowa men’s basketball coach Ben McCollum has described his team as a work in progress and that was certainly the case in Friday’s 81-62 victory over Xavier.

Iowa had to overcome some rough stretches of play in the early stages of both halves, but still managed to pull away in the second half, improving to 3-0 on the young season.

McCollum was noticeably upset at times with his team’s performance on the court as star point guard Bennett Stirtz even appeared to get an ear-full from his head coach when he did something McCollum didn’t like.

But even with all the struggles, Iowa still won by 19 points and the 6-foot-4 Stirtz still finished with 21 points, eight rebounds, three assists and two steals while playing the entire 40 minutes.

Stirtz was asked after Friday’s game if McCollum’s tough love makes him better.

“Oh, yeah, and it keeps me humble, too,” Stirtz said. “It keeps me focused as well. And I need that. I can’t let no one not push me. I need someone to push me throughout the season.

“He does that and it make me better.”

McCollum has been pushing Stirtz for the past three seasons, beginning at Northwest Missouri State as a freshman and sophomore and then at Drake last season.

And it’s hard to argue with McCollum’s approach considering that Stirtz has gone from a being a good role player at the Division II level early in his career to now being considered one of the top college point guards in the country.

“I think over time people get used to me because I’m half nuts, and fully nuts if you ask my wife,” said McCollum who led Drake to a 31-4 record in his only season as head coach last season. “I coach with a lot of intensity and it’s not always telling people, hey, you made that mistake, don’t do that. It’s really telling them what to do.

“And with him, I’ve coached him for four years, and if you’re going to be a point guard for me, you’re going to hear it because a lot of people get on the 12th player on the bench. and I get on the player that is supposed to be the best player. And that’s who I get after because I know if I can get him going, I can get the rest of them going.”

That seems to be what happened in Friday’s game, especially early in the second half after Stirtz had committed two turnovers.

McCollum let him know that he wasn’t pleased with how the team was playing and that appeared to light a spark as Iowa pulled away in the second half.

“We battled today. It was a pretty slow start,” Stirtz said. “I thought we were over-thinking it. They changed lineups and that was part of it. We were over-thinking that and they played a lot of shooters.

“But we adjusted and I thought we came out good in the second part of the first half and in the second part of the second half. We just battled.”

Iowa came out flat as Stirtz described it to begin the game, committing three early turnovers, much to McCollum’s displeasure.

But then the offense started to click in the latter stages of the first half as Iowa closed the half on a 18-4 scoring, including scoring the final 11 points to take a 45-29 lead at the break.

Iowa shot a blistering 62.5 percent from the field in the first half, making 15 of 24 shots, including 3-of-6 from 3-point range.

Xavier, on the other hand, only shot 40 percent from the field in the first half, making 12 of 30 attempts, including 5 of 17 shots from 3-point range.

McCollum’s teams are known for playing with high energy on defense, and it was Iowa’s defense that helped to energize the offense during the late surge in the first half, and also in the second half when Iowa built a 22-point lead midway through the half.

Stirtz was among three Iowa players to score in double figures, along with junior forward Tavion Banks (13) and junior guard Cael Combs (11), who played a career-high 31.47 minutes off the bench.

Combs also had four assists and just one turnover, while the high-flying Banks had five rebounds, three steals and two assists.

Combs, Banks and Stirtz are among three former Drake players that followed McCollum to Iowa.

So, all three are used to how McCollum coaches.

Combs was asked if he felt that Iowa achieved what it wanted to do defensively, which included holding Xavier to just 39 percent shooting from the field.

“Coach (McCollum) will probably go back and watch the film and be a little bit mad like he always does,” Combs said. “But I think we did an okay job. First half, we started out slow. But I think we picked it up in the second half and just imposed our will.”

Junior forward Alvaro Folgueiras struggled with foul problems in the first half. But he came on strong in the second half and finished with eight rebounds and eight points.

Iowa will face Southeast Missouri State in its next game on Tuesday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

There were several times in Friday’s game when McCollum turned to the fans and encouraged them to stand up and cheer.

The Iowa men’s basketball team is coming off back-to-back seasons in which it failed to make the NCAA Tournament under former head coach Fran McCaffery.

Attendance also sunk to a historically low level last season and that was another factor in dismissing McCaffery.

McCollum started his post-game press conference on Friday by thanking the fans, just like he did after the first two games.

“Again, thanks for the crowd,” McCollum aid. “I think we’re starting to slowly build a crowd. “It’s a build for everybody, the whole community of Iowa City, the state of Iowa and the University of Iowa.

“We’ve got to do this together because it’s going to take time and it’s not always going to be perfect. But if you can keep coming out, we’re going to work on some cheers. The problem is every time I get them fired up, we get scored on.”

McCollum said again on Friday that his team is a work in progress.

“A major work in progress,” McCollum said. “A work in progress until the end of the season. But whenever you take over something, and you build it kind of from scratch essentially, a lot of people are excited, which I am, too. You have to make sure that part of that excitement is there’s a long game to it, too.

“Hey, there’s going to be ebbs and flows, and that’s the rally fun part of it. If everything is just good, the good doesn’t seem as good because there’s never any bad if that make any sense. It is going to be hard. Being good is hard, and that’s what makes it fun.”

McCollum has become known for wearing a white button-down shirt, black pants and a tie that matches his school’s colors.

He did it at Northwestern Missouri State, at Drake and now at Iowa.

He was asked after Friday’s game why he does it.

His answer was interesting to say the least.

When the global pandemic caused multiple coaches to switch from wearing a suit and tie to more causal attire, even sweat pants in some cases, McCollum stuck with the button-down shirt, black pants and tie, but his reason might surprise you.

“Then Covid hit and everybody started wearing the comfortable stuff,” McCollum said. “I don’t like to feel comfortable during a game. I like to feel really uncomfortable and uptight.

“And then I do think there’s a level of professionalism. You get paid a lot of money to be in this profession. And I do feel there’s an old-school professionalism to it. That’s no knock on other people that wear the other stuff. That’s fine. That doesn’t bother me whatsoever. That’s just me personally.”

McCollum told the media after Friday’s win that he likes the edginess that comes with wearing a shirt and tie.

“I like to fight, not actually fight. I like the fight of it,” McCollum said.

Iowa came out sluggish on offense to begin the game, committing three early turnovers, much to McCollum’s displeasure. He was uncomfortable, but this had more to do with his team’s slow start than his formal attire.

The important thing is that Stirtz and his cohorts, with help from the bench, stayed the course and eventually seized control of the game.

It was just a work in progress.