By Mike Hlas

IOWA CITY, Iowa – This was the night University of Iowa students took over Hawkeye men’s basketball.

It was something that has been discussed for years, decades even. How do you get the students to even come to Iowa games, let alone be a true Sixth Man in Carver-Hawkeye Arena? First-year Hawkeyes coach Ben McCollum has said and said he wants the students — and all Iowa fans — to connect with his club.

Tuesday night, there was a tight connection to their hearts. The evening concluded with a court-storm as the scoreboard showed the Hawkeyes had clawed their way to a 57-52 win over No. 9 Nebraska.

This was the 19th win of the season for the Iowa men’s basketball team, but it was the one they needed most. It felt like both an exorcism and a rebirth.

There was a day — shoot, it’s been the entire previous time Nebraska has been in the Big Ten –when Iowa wouldn’t dream of its court filling fans after a Carver-Hawkeye Arena win over the Huskers. But this is 2026 and Fred Hoiberg’s team is very good.

Not only did the Hawkeyes stop a 2-game skid capped with a bleak 78-57 home loss to Purdue last Saturday, they defeated a ranked foe for the first time in the McCollum era. Not just a Top Ten opponent, either. It was a team whose leading scorer, junior wing Pryce Sandfort, played for Iowa the previous two seasons and left the program shortly after Fran McCaffery was fired as coach.

None of that was going to appease the Iowa students. Sandfort had never heard a student-section response in Carver like the one that was in full-throated force Tuesday. “F*** Pryce Sandfort!” chants were heard before and during the game. “F*** Nebraska!” was heard in the final seconds as a hard-earned victory was secured.

In between the vulgarities, the kids and the older folks in the crowd of 11,483 wearing Hawkeye black were yelling in a considerably more-positive vein, encouraging their team when it had the ball and when it was on defense. I’ve seen a few games in Carver. It’s been forever and a day since the fans were on their feet as often or as long as this group was.

It’s awesome to see a packed student-section, a packed Carver,” said Iowa forward Cooper Koch, who scored Iowa’s first five points. “We need that for whoever comes here, whether they be Top Ten or last in the Big Ten. It creates a huge homecourt advantage.”

Of all the Iowa students in the arena, one stood out. That was senior point guard Bennett Stirtz, who put his team on his shoulders all game, but especially in the final five minutes. He had 25 points. Again, he scored more than any three of his teammates combined. He also, however, took on the assignment of guarding perpetual-motion man Sandfort, who had been averaging over 19 points in league games.

Here’s how the decision to put Stirtz on Sandfort went according to McCollum:

“Bennett, who do you want to guard?”

“Pryce, Coach.”

“OK, go ahead.”

Sandfort entered the game averaging 13 field goal tries per game and leading the league in 3-pointers. He made a pair of threes to set the Nebraska single-season record with 90 withmany games left to play, but was held to 13 points and just seven field goal tries of any kind.

“It’s a lot of guarding,” Stirtz said. “He’s moving around a lot, but I kind of embraced it. He’s a great shooter, and I just (put) a lot gravity towards him. We knew if we locked him up, we had a good chance to win the game.”

Both offenses got locked up in this one. It was 43-43 with seven minutes left. Stirtz then scored Iowa’s next 10 points as the Hawkeyes took a lead they kept. He scored on a 2-point jumper, off a steal, on a 3-pointer. He made three foul shots after getting Nebraska defensive ace Sam Hoiberg in the air on a long jumper with just four seconds left in the shot clock.

The kid’s an animal,” Fred Hoiberg said about Stirtz. “I think he’s as good as anybody in the country. The kid’s absolutely phenomenal.”

The regular-season will end on March 8 when Iowa plays at Nebraska. Sandfort will find a more-supportive crowd that day. Of all those here wanting the Hawkeyes to win Tuesday, McCollum was the most-charitable toward the player.

“One thing I do want make sure that people understand is Payton (Sandfort) obviously played here four years. He’s a former player. He’s a Hawkeye. The Sandfort family means a lot to us, Pryce included, even though he left, obviously. But it was because of a coaching change, so it’s totally understandable.

“The Sandfort family are very, very welcome here.”

This is kind of what it can be,” said McCollum. “Every single time we have something positive like this happen, we always make sure that everybody knows this is what it can be. It can be this every night, and it can be fun like this.

“I thought it was awesome.”

One of the faces in the crowd belonged to Aaron White, a Hawkeye standout forward from 2011 to 2015. White, 32, had never been back to an Iowa game after graduation because he’s been playing professionally all over the world at this time of year. He got a break in his schedule playing in Japan, and heard the kind of crowd noise in Carver that he experienced late in his senior season when he had six straight games of 21 or more points.

Oh, if only Stirtz had played here for four seasons instead of just this one. Oh, what a one it’s been.

“He’s a gamer,” White said in the tunnel from the arena to the dressing rooms. Much like White, really.

They didn’t sell beer in Carver when White played here. Before this game, $3 beers (short ones) were on sale on the concourse, and the line was long. Did the cheap suds help the Hawkeyes win?

Most students of the sport would suggest the hard-nosed play of Stirtz and his teammates had more to do with it. There was no question, however, that a good time was had by all on the Iowa side.