By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – Five games into the Ben McCollum coaching era and the Iowa men’s basketball team has yet to be seriously challenged on the court.

But that will soon change.

Iowa crushed winless Chicago State 93-54 on Thursday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena as senior forward Tavion Banks, a transfer from Drake,  recorded his first double-double as a Hawkeye with 16 points and 10 rebounds. He had nine of his rebounds in the first half.

Junior forward Alvaro Folgueiras, freshman guard Tate Sage and redshirt freshman forward Cooper Koch also scored in double figures for Iowa with 16, 13 and 10 points, respectively.

Iowa improved to 5-0, with all of its wins coming by double figures, while the Cougars fell to 0-6.

But now the competition will improve significantly for Iowa when it faces Ole Miss in its next game this coming Tuesday in Palm Springs, California.

“I would say I’m excited about it, I’m really excited about it,” Banks said. “We have a lot of things to prepare ourselves for it, being more physical and executing offensively and just finishing the plays on defense, the 50-50 balls, just the little things, the little things win games. Defense wins games. and just being together as a team, that wins games.”

McCollum, who led Drake to a 31-4 record in his only season as head coach last season, is also excited to see how his team responds to better competition after five lopsided wins.

“I’m just ready to get after it,” McCollum said.

Star point guard Bennett Stirtz finished with nine points, six assists and five rebounds, and was able to sit for the final four minutes with Iowa comfortably in the lead.

Stirtz, who averaged nearly 39 minutes of playing time for Drake last season, has now rested on the bench at the end of two straight games.

Banks said Chicago State’s physical playing style reminded of him of when he played in junior college.

“It most definitely felt like my JUCO days a little bit because they were getting a little physical, and in JUCO it gets a little crazy,” said the 6-foot-7 Banks, who is from Kansas City, Missouri. “You could come out with a chipped tooth. I was enjoying it a little bit. It was pretty fun. It was probably one of my greatest rebounding game ever.”

Banks was asked in the post-game press conference if he could recall some moments when play turned chippy in JUCO ball.

But he drew a blank, apparently for good reason.

“I don’t remember any of them,” Banks said as he chuckled. “I had a couple concussions in JUCO.”

McCollum made his first lineup change of this young season as junior guard Kael Combs replaced sophomore guard Isaia Howard, who started the first four games.

McCollum hinted after Tuesdays win over Southeast Missouri State that he might tinker with the lineup.

He said he put Combs in the starting lineup to have more ball handlers against Chicago State’s press.

Combs, a transfer from Drake, finished with five assists, three points and two steals.

He said he was told during warm-ups that he would start.

“I wasn’t like really surprised,” Combs said. “It didn’t really matter to me. There’s pros and cons to both.”

Stirtz made a traditional three-point play with 3.5 seconds remaining in the first half to give Iowa a 40-24 lead at the break.

Tavion Banks led Iowa in both scoring and rebounding in the first half with 11 points and nine rebounds, respectively.

The Cougars only shot 36 percent from the feld in the first half, making just 9 of 25 attempts.

Iowa only shot 42.9 percent from the field in the first half, but compensated by making 13 of 17 free throw attempts. Banks made all five of his free throw attempts in the first half.