By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – When Fran McCaffery was fired as the Iowa men’s basketball last March, two names immediately emerged as top candidates to replace him:

Ben McCollum and Darian DeVries.

The coach who wanted the Iowa job (McCollum) versus the coach (DeVries) who had little to no interest in the Iowa job despite speculation that he was a leading candidate.

The search lasted less than two weeks as McCollum was thrilled to accept Iowa’s offer, while DeVries reportedly never even responded to calls or text messages from Iowa.

DeVries clearly had his sights set on a different job and he was thrilled to accept Indiana’s offer to run its storied program. and more power to him because it could be certainly argued that Indiana is a better job than the Iowa job.

DeVries had to do what he felt was in his best interest, and you couldn’t blame him for that.

And in fairness, he wasn’t the one saying that Iowa was his dream job.

It was assumed by some fans, and by some in the media, that DeVries was hoping to coach the Hawkeyes some day, apparently because his brother, Jared DeVries, was a former star football player at Iowa.

Because that was really the only connection as Darian DeVries played basketball for Northern Iowa and was long-time assistant coach at Creighton before spending six seasons as the head coach at Drake from 2018 to 2024 and one season as the head coach at West Virginia last season.

McCollum didn’t really have a connection to the Iowa program, either, though he was born in Iowa City and he grew up in Storm Lake as a huge Iowa basketball fan.

McCollum, coached for 14 seasons at Division II power Northwest Missouri State, where he won four nationals titles, and for one season at Drake where he led the Bulldogs to a 31-4 record in his only season as head coach last season.

It was McCollum’s record-breaking success at Drake that put him on Iowa’s radar, while DeVries had been on Iowa’s radar for a while due mostly to his success at Drake, where he compiled a 150-55 overall record and made three NCAA Tournament appearances.

But when it ultimately came down to Iowa Athletic Director Beth Goetz making the hire, one coach wanted the Iowa job and the other didn’t.

And now those two head coaches will cross paths on Saturday when Iowa faces Indiana in Bloomington, Indiana.

Both teams certainly need a win with Iowa coming off three straight losses and just 2-4 in the Big Ten, while the Hoosiers have dropped two straight games against Nebraska (83-77) and at Michigan State (81-60) to lower their record to 12-5 overall and 3-3 in Big Ten play.

Saturday’s game will be the first time that McCollum and DeVries have coached against each other.

But they know each other on a personal level and will forever share their Bulldog bond since McCollum replaced DeVries as the Drake head coach prior to last season.

DeVries coached at West Virginia last season before taking the Indiana job.

“I know him, for sure, I’ve talked to him throughout,” McCollum said of DeVries. “He did an unreal job there (Drake). He’s doing a really good job at Indiana and did a great job at West Virginia. He’s a really good coach.

“I’ve known him for quite a few years. So he’s done a great job everywhere he’s been.”

Indiana announced the hiring of DeVries on March 18, 2025, which was six days before Iowa hired McCollum.

The DeVries-to-Iowa narrative was dead before it ever really had a chance to breath.

There was plenty of speculation and hype, but it was sort of misleading.

The truth is that Iowa zeroed in on McCollum after learning that DeVries had no interest, and the two sides quickly reached a deal.

There is always the chance that McCollum still would have been hired even if DeVries would have had interest in the Iowa job.

But we’ll never know.

What we do now is that both teams will be looking to get back in the win column when they meet on Saturday.

This marks the first time that McCollum has lost three games in a row as a head coach since the 2012-13 season at Northwest State.

“I think the amount in a row is probably irrelevant, meaning I think that’s more of an outside perspective, if you will,” McCollum said Friday. “I think it’s just are we continuing to improve? Are we continuing to grow and get better?

“Ultimately, you still want to win the game. Any competitor does. But whether it’s three in a row or three throughout a season, it’s all kind of the same.

“The message is to continue to get better and continue to stay process focused. But here’s some of the things that we didn’t do, and had we done them, we could have won probably any of the three to be perfectly honest. They were all right there. We just weren’t ready to be able to do those as a team. We weren’t ready to make those plays down the stretch.”

Indiana is 10-1 inside Assembly Hall this season with its lone defeat coming against Nebraska on Jan. 10.

The Hoosiers have four players averaging in double figures with Lamar Wilkerson leading the team with a 20.2 scoring average, which ranks fourth in the Big Ten. He has a league best 61 3-pointers (seventh nationally), while shooting a B1G-best 42.4 percent from long range.

Forward Tucker DeVries, who is the son of Darian DeVries, averages 14.6 points and a team high 4.9 rebounds, guard Tayton Conerway averages 11.9 points and has a team-high 77 assists and 25 steals, while Reed Baily chips in 10.1 points per game.

The Hoosiers are sixth in the Big Ten, averaging 83.1 points per game, while surrendering 68.8. The team shots 48 percent from the field and averages 10.5 3-pointers (2nd-most in B1G), while making 36.1 percent of its attempts.

Senior point guard Bennett Stirtz leads Iowa in scoring with a 17.7 per-game average. Stirtz is the only Iowa player currently averaging in double figures.

He is also one of six former Drake players that followed McCollum to Iowa, because just like their head coach, they wanted to be Iowa.

Iowa probable starters

G 14 Bennett Stirtz 6-4 190 Sr.-TR Liberty, Mo. 17.7 2.4 5.0 .481 .379 .816 35.4
Acrisure Classic MVP… 113 consecutive starts… 6+ assists in 7 games… 20+ pts. in 7 games… Sporting News Midseason All-American… Drake & NW Mo. St. transfer… MVC Player of the Year.

G 11 Kael Combs 6-4 205 Jr.-TR Nixa, Mo. 6.5 2.5 2.9 .520 .429 .852 26.6
Started Iowa’s last 12 games… career-high 16 points, 4 3-ptrs. at Purdue… 49 assists, 20 T4s… averages 2nd-most minutes on team… Drake & Wyoming transfer.

F 3 Cam Manyawu 6-9 250 Jr.-TR Kansas City, Mo. 7.6 4.6 0.9 .630 .000 .700 17.2
51 consecutive starts…double figures in 5 of last 8 games… 13 pts., 3 steals at Purdue… Drake & Wyoming transfer… has nine career double-doubles.

F 6 Tavion Banks 6-7 215 Sr.-TR Kansas City, Mo. 9.6 4.3 1.3 .548 .529 .745 20.6
Team-high 17 pts., 9 reb. vs. Bucknell… 16-pt./10 reb. double-double vs. Chicago St… double figures in 7 games… Drake & NW Fla. St. College transfer… MVC Sixth Man of the Year.

F 8 Cooper Koch 6-8 220 RS Fr.-1L Peoria, Ill. 7.5 3.5 1.0 .495 .411 .789 25.6
First career double-double vs. Ole Miss (14 pts./10-reb.)…11 pts. vs. Maryland with 3 3-pointers… lone returning scholarship player.

KEY RESERVES HT. WT. YR.-EXP. HOMETOWN PPG RPG ASST FG% 3FG% FT% MPG
F 7 Alvaro Folgueiras 6-10 230 Jr-TR Malaga, Spain 8.7 3.9 2.1 .536 .415 .710 19.9
G 10 Jacob Koch 6-2 185 So.-1L Iowa City, Iowa 0.5 0.0 0.3 .333 .000 .000 2.2
G 15 Brendan Hausen 6-4 220 Sr.-TR Amarillo, Texas 4.8 0.8 0.3 .375 .381 1.000 10.8
G 23 Isaia Howard 6-5 215 So.-TR Plattsburg, Mo. 6.9 2.9 1.2 .500 .265 .762 19.5
G 24 Tate Sage 6-7 210 Fr.-HS Weatherford, Okla. 6.5 2.5 1.1 .493 .364 .667 17.9
C 27 Trevin Jirak 6-11 250 Fr.-HS West Des Moines, Iowa 4.4 1.2 1.3 .531 .143 .632 10.1
F 44 Joey Matteoni 6-9 215 RS Fr.-TR Overland Park, Kan. 2.1 0.8 0.4 .533 .000 .500 4.4

Iowa (12-5, 2-4) vs. Indiana (12-5, 3-3)

When: Saturday, 1:10 p.m.

Where: Bloomington, Indiana

TV: FOX

Radio: Hawkeye Radio Network

Series history: Saturday’s game is the 191st meeting in the all-time series that began in 1909. The Hoosiers lead the series, 107-83.

Iowa has won five of the last six meetings, including an 85-60 triumph last season in Iowa City.

Indiana is 63-32 against Iowa in Bloomington. The Hawkeyes’ last victory came on Feb. 28, 2023, in a 90-68 rout.

Iowa has three wins inside Assembly Hall in its last 10 meetings.

Editor’s note: hawkeyesports.com contributed to this report.