By Hawk Fanatic

In a battle of former Drake head coaches, the one who still coaches in his home state of Iowa came away victorious.

That would be Iowa men’s basketball coach Ben McCollum, whose team defeated Darian DeVries’ Indiana Hoosiers 74-57 on Saturday at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Indiana.

With the win, Iowa snapped a three-game losing streak, the first for McCollum as a head coach in 13 years, and improved to 3-4 in the Big Ten and 13-5 overall.

Indiana fell to 12-6 and 3-4.

Senior point guard Bennett Stirtz was brilliant for Iowa on offense as he scored 27 points and made two pivotal 3-point baskets in the second half that helped to quell Indiana’s chance for a comeback, including one that gave Iowa a 57-47 lead with 9 minutes, 14 seconds left to play.

Iowa senior forward Tavion Banks, who has been suffering from flu-like symptoms, also had his best game as a Hawkeye as he scored 26 points, grabbed a team-high eight rebounds, and played with an edge as he always does. He also made all nine of his free throw attempts, while Stirtz was 10-for-11 from the line.

“I’m just pushing through it,” Banks said on the Learfield post-game radio interview. “I’m feeling a little bit better. I’m still under the weather a little bit, but it doesn’t bother me.”

Banks scored 18 points in Iowa’s previous game against Illinois last Sunday, but Iowa still lost that game, 75-69, in Iowa City.

The 26 points scored by Banks in Saturday’s win was the most points for him as a Hawkeye.

Banks and Stirtz are among six former Drake players that followed McCollum to Iowa. The most points that Banks scored in a game for Drake was 21.

“My confidence is really going up the roof right now,” Banks said. “And the coaches are believing in me to me to play my game, so I just want to give credit to them and to my team, too, most definitely for believing in me.”

Iowa never trailed in Saturday’s game and the lead was so big in the second half, climbing to as high s 22 points, that McCollum was able to rest some of his starters at the end of the game.

Iowa also held Indiana without a field goal for nearly nine minutes in the second half.

Iowa was leading 49-39 when Indiana scored six straight points, cutting the 49-45 with 11:13 left to play.

Iowa then responded with a 17-3 scoring run and would go on to pull away down the stretch, giving McCollum his first Big Ten road win.

“I thought we made some winning plays defensively and that’s how you win on the road,” McCollum said. “Like we’ve said all along, it’s a work in progress. We’re learning every day and I’d rather learn with a win than a loss.”

Iowa made 21-of-23 free throw attempts as a team, thanks almost exclusively to Stirtz and Banks, who were a combined 19-of-20 from the line.

Iowa had struggled to get to the free throw line in recent games, and McCollum thinks he knows why.

“We just attacked better,” he said. “I thought Bennett did a better job of actually being physical on his drives to finish. I think sometimes he fades away on his drives and it looks as though, I don’t know if it’s he’s flopping, but he’s not. It’s just that he’s driving away from the goal. You’ve got to drive drive down hill and get physical on those drives or you’re not going to get any calls.

“And I thought he did a much better job of that (today).”

And though junior forward Alvaro Folgueiras was held scoreless and only attempted three shots, McCollum still singled Folgueiras out for praise on his post-game radio interview for his performance on the other end of the court.

“I thought Alvaro had his best game of the year from a defensive perspective,” McCollum said. “I thought he was fantastic. I thought the start he was probably as poor as I’ve seen him. But in that second half, he was fantastic defensively. And I thought he sparked us a lot.

“And then, obviously, the other guys did a good job of understanding who they were guarding and taken some stuff away.”

As for the Drake connection, McCollum, who was born in Iowa City and grew up in Storm Lake, finished 31-4 in his only season as the Drake head coach last season, while DeVries, who is from Aplington, compiled a 150-55 record over six seasons as the Drake head coach from 2018-24, while also leading the Bulldogs to three NCAA Tournament appearances.

McCollum’s record-breaking success at Drake caught the attention of Iowa Athletic Director Beth Goetz, and when DeVries took the Indiana job last March, Iowa hired McCollum less than week later.

Saturday’s game marked the second time this season that McCollum has faced a former Drake head coach.

The first time didn’t work out very well, though, as Iowa fell to Nico Medved’s Minnesota Gophers 70-67 on Jan. 6 in Minneapolis.

Medved was the Drake head coach for one season in 2017-18.

Stirtz picked up his second foul with 4:08 left in the first half, and with Iowa leading, 30-25. He was called for charging in both cases while being defended by Indiana guard Connor Enright, who played for DeVries at Drake two year ago.

McCollum took a chance by leaving Stirtz in for the rest of the first half, but it paid off as Stirtz avoided his third foul and helped Iowa build a 38-28 halftime lead by scoring 14 points in the half on 5-of-7 shooting from the field, and by having four assists.

Iowa never trailed in the first half and led by as many as 11 points in the half.

The Hawkeyes also shot 54.2 from the field in the first half, making 13-of-24 field-goal attempts, and had a 17-13 rebounding advantage.

Iowa made nine of its final 12 shots from the field in the first half.

The challenge for Iowa heading to the second half was to finish what it started.

Iowa would go on to meet that challenge in impressive fashion, earning a Quad 1 win.

Iowa now returns home to face Rutgers on Tuesday.