By Pat Harty

IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa men’s basketball team was sputtering along and trailing Northwestern in the first half on Sunday when star point guard Bennett Stirtz apparently had seen enough.

He then scored 10 straight points as Iowa seized the momentum, and the lead by halftime, and would then go on to prevail 76-70  at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

The Hawkeyes closed the first half on a 17-8 scoring run, turning a 27-22 deficit into a 39-35 lead at halftime.

Stirtz would stay hot in the second half as he led Iowa with a career-high 36 points on 12-of-20 shooting from the field. The 6-foot-4 Stirtz also made all eight of his free throw attempts and scored 22 points in the second half.

His team needed Stirtz to stay hot on offense in the second half as the pesky Wildcats, who were coming off an 84-44 loss at Illinois, just kept hanging around.

“Obviously, we can talk about Bennett Stirtz, he was fantastic,” said Northwestern head coach Chris Collins. “He really controlled the game. We did a of stuff to try and get the ball out of his hands and we tried to do some different things and he just played like an All-American type player today and willed his team to win.”

Iowa was clinging to a 70-67 lead when Stirtz made a layup in traffic with 1 minute, 40 seconds left to play.

Northwestern also had trimmed the deficit to three points (56-53) when Stirtz made a three with 8:19 seconds left to play.

His three increased his point total to 25 in the game and it also caused Chris Collins to call a timeout with the crowd re-energized again.

The Wildcats had crept to within six points when Stirtz also made a a three to expand Iowa’s lead 68-59 with 3:38 remaining.

Collins then called another timeout, but Stirtz and his cohorts would hang on for the win.

Iowa finally secured the win on a breakaway dunk by Cooper Koch with 24 seconds remaining.

Iowa has now won six straight games and improved to 18-5 overall and 8-4 in the Big Ten under first-year head coach Ben McCollum.

Northwestern fell to 2-11 in the Big Ten and 10-14 overall.

Iowa was coming off a two-game road trip to the Pacific Northwest, and even though it resulted in wins over Oregon and Washington, there is always a concern about a letdown under those circumstances.

And for much of the first half, Iowa played like a team suffering from a letdown; that is until Stirtz took over.

The Liberty, Missouri native converted back-to-back traditional 3-point plays during his 10-point flurry in the first half, which finally had fans on their feet and turned a 27-22 deficit into a 32-30 lead.

Iowa would never trail again.

Stirtz had scored a previous career high of 32 points in the win over Oregon.

However, his father reminded him after the Oregon game that he still fell short of matching his father’s career high in college of 34 points.

Stirtz’s father played for Division II Emporia State in college.

“My dad let me know (after the Oregon game) because his career-high was 34 and he let me know I didn’t beat it,” Stirtz said. “So I’m going to let him know after this press conference. I’m going to give it to him.”

Asked what his message to his father would be, Stirtz said:

“Take that. I beat your career high. I’ll give him some crap.”

Even with his team’s sluggish start, McCollum didn’t blame it on the effects from the trip to the Pacific Northwest. He instead gave credit to Northwestern and to Chris Collins for having his team ready to play.

“He’s as good a coach as there is in the league,” McCollum said of Collins, who is the only coach to lead Northwestern to the NCAA Tournament, having accomplished it three times. “And I don’t say that just because they’ve had a rough stretch right here so you’re just kind of patting somebody on the back. But that’s not the case whatsoever.

“I’ve watched them for years. They run unique sets. They play their butt off. They understand how to defend. They understand all those things. And as those freshmen become sophomores and juniors, they’re going to be formidable. But our guys have to understand, this is the Big Ten and you need to make sure that you’re consistently at your best. Now I thought Northwestern had a lot to do with that.”

McCollum praised the Northwestern players for bouncing back from the lopsided loss at Illinois. He could sense early that the Wildcats were focused and determined to give Iowa a battle as they did.

“You could see there was  different level of hunger,” McCollum said. “I didn’t think we had a great deal of hunger to start the game. I thought we then figured it out, but then we made a lot of losing plays again down the stretch where we just fouled and didn’t get in coverage again; just some things that we need to continue to correct and continue to grow with.

“But it’s the Big Ten; you’re not going to win everything by 40 points. It’s not easy like that. There’s good coaches and good players and Northwestern is one of them.”

Stirtz led Iowa with 14 points in the first half, while Tavion Banks scored nine points in the first half and made all five of his free throw attempts.

Banks also made two free throws to give Iowa a 74-67 lead with 36.8 seconds remaining.

Banks finished the game with 13 points and 7-for-7 from the free throw line. He and Stirtz were the only player for Iowa to score in double figures.

Iowa will hit the road again for it’s next game, but this time in the other direction as Iowa will face Maryland on Wednesday in College Park, Maryland. Maryland defeated Minnesota on Sunday in Minneapolis for its second conference win.

With Sunday’s win, Iowa has surpassed its win total from last season when it finished 17-16 overall. The Hawkeyes also have won six straight Big Ten game for the first time in 10 years.