By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – With just over seven minutes remaining in Tuesday’s game against Southeast Missouri State, Iowa senior point guard Bennett Stirtz was substituted for and didn’t return to the game.

That should tell you how the game played out as Iowa crushed the Redhawks 99-70 at Carver-Hawkeye Arena to improve to 4-0 under first-year head coach Ben McCollum.

Stirtz usually plays from start to finish, as he already has twice this season.

But with Iowa leading by as many as 30 points in the second half, McCollum decided that the lead was large enough to give his star point guard some time to rest and watch from the bench.

Stirtz spent the final seven minutes sitting near the end of the Iowa bench with a towel wrapped around his neck.

The Liberty, Missouri native finished with 15 points and nine assists and also had zero turnovers.

Junior forward Alvaro Folgueiras led four Iowa players in double figures with 16 points off the bench. Junior forward Cam Manyawu and freshman center Trevin Jirak also scored in double figures with 12 and 10 points, respectively.

“I didn’t really want to,” McCollum said of having Stirtz sit the final seven minutes. “Then they made a little run back at us, and I’m like, ‘where is he?”

McCollum was sort of half joking as he talked putting the 6-foot-4 Stirtz back in the game.

“He played a good game. It was good to get everybody in a little bit,” McCollum said.

McCollum then was very candid when explaining one of the reasons why he chooses to play Stirtz so many minutes.

McCollum is trying to give his team the best chance of making the NCAA Tournament as an at-large bid, and sometimes, that requires beating teams that are underdogs by wide margins.

“This is the tough part about this level is that net ranking thing,” McCollum said. “You’ve got to beat teams by a lot. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. You should just win and then you can play different guys.

“But it was good to get him out and give him a little break because we’ve got another tough one on Thursday.”

When told that it’s rare for a head coach to acknowledge the importance of beating opponents by wide margins due to the net rankings, McCollum said:

“I don’t really think about it, but you don’t sub as much as you normally would. That’s what you’ve got to do a little bit. I’ve never had to do that in my career because at Drake we weren’t going to make (the NCAA Tournament) as an at-large anyway. But at this level, that’s part of it. That’s why those guys schedule the way they do.”

McCollum led Drake to a 31-4 record and to the second round of the NCAA Tournament in his only season as head coach last season.

Stirtz is among six former Drake players that followed McCollum to Iowa after he was hired last March.

Iowa improved to 4-0 with Tuesday’s win and now faces a quick turnaround as it will host Chicago State on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

SEMO fell to 1-4.

Iowa shot 61.2 percent from the field, making 30 of 59 field goal attempts.

Kansas State transfer Brendan Hausen, a 6-4 guard, came off the bench and made 3 of 6 shots from 3-point range, including one form Caitlin Clark range.

Hausen also played a season-high 19.55 minutes.

“That’s the beauty of this team, I think everybody has the capability to come in and really get going,” Hausen said. “And we’re a really deep team. And so on any given night, anybody can get it going and that’s what you need going into the Big Ten. You need a deep lineup and guys that can play a lot of minutes.

“So I think that tonight was just a night where a lot of guys got to get going and it really worked out.”

McCollum used 11 players in Tuesday’s game and 10 of them scored at least six points.

Hausen was expected to play a significant role this season due partly to his 3-point shooting prowess as he displayed in Tuesday’s win.

But he has yet to start a game for Iowa, and his playing time has been limited.

And yet despite coming off the bench, Hausen seems content with whatever role he has on this team.

The Amarillo, Texas native started his career at Villanova then transferred to Kansas State, where averaged 10 points per game last season, and then finally to Iowa this past summer.

“Any time you move three times in four years, obviously, there’s a little bit of adjusting on the floor and off the floor,” Hausen said. “But at the end of the day, it’s college basketball.

“But (coach McCollum) has just helped me be a better leader, be a better competitor. And he’s honest with us. I just want to take the most pride in my role that I can and be a vocal leader. And if that’s coming off the bench, if that’s playing a certain amount of minutes, whatever it is, I’m here for it. And at the end of the day, I just want to win.”

Folgueiras, a 6-10 transfer from Robert Morris who grew up in Spain, also is adjusting to coming off the bench.

“I just go in there and play. It’s that easy,” Folgueiras said of being a spark off the bench. “Coach makes me feel important and I’m trying to answer to his confidence every time that I’m on the court.

“I don’t care if I start the game on the bench, in my house or back in Spain. Whatever he wants.”

McCollum has started the same five players in each of the four games this season. But he said after Tuesday’s win that he might change the lineup in the near future.

McCollum praised Folgueiras for accepting his role coming off the bench. It’s a drastic change from last season when Folgueiras was named the 2024-25 Horizon League Player of the Year while playing for Robert Morris.

“We’ve made him earn it,” McCollum said. “A guy of his stature and he’s coming off the bench and he’s not sitting there pouting about it; he’s trying to keep going, which says something about him.”

Iowa shot 60.0 percent from the field in the first half, making 14 of 23 field-goal attempts, and led 49-25 at the break.

About the only thing Iowa didn’t do well in the first half was shoot free throws as it missed nine of its 26 attempts.

The Redhawks only shot 40 percent (10 of 25) from the field in the first half and also committed 10 turnovers, while Iowa only had four turnovers in the first half.

McCollum used 10 players in the first half and all 10 of them score at least two points led by Stirtz with 10 and Cam Manyawu with nine.

The attendance for Tuesday’s game (9,302) was light compared to the first three home games this season, showing that McCollum’s attempt to re-energize the the fan base will take some time.

The best way to accomplish that is to win games, and right now Iowa is undefeated after four games.