By Hawk Fanatic

One of the greatest seasons in the history of the Iowa men’s basketball program, which just a couple weeks ago seemed to be on life support, ended in the NCAA Elite Eight on Saturday in Houston.

No. 9 seed Iowa fell to three-seed Illinois, 71-59, but not without a fight as senior point guard Bennett Stirtz did all he could to keep his college career alive under his beloved head coach, Ben McCollum.

Stirtz scored 24 points, but he and freshman guard Tate Sage were the only players for Iowa to score in double figures as Sage finished with 10, capping a great run for him in the Big Dance.

The Elite Eight seemed as far away as Pluto when the season started, and even more so when Iowa finished the regular season with a 10-10 conference record, and with three straight losses.

But McCollum kept saying that his team was a work in progress, and that there would be some tough stretches.

His message was to just keep grinding, competing and focusing on the present; a message he has preached throughout his rise as a head coach, and it worked brilliantly this season as Iowa finished with a 24-13 record.

Illinois eventually overpowered Iowa with its size, especially on defense, and there was only so much that McCollum, Stirtz and the rest of Stirtz’ s supporting cast could do.

Iowa only made 6-of-26 field-goal attempts in the second half.

Iowa was trying to make the Final Four for the first time since 1980, and with a roster that was built almost from the ground up with redshirt-freshman forward Cooper Koch the only holdover scholarship player from the Fran McCaffery era.

Nobody, even the most delusional Hawkeye fan, could have envisioned this kind of deep run in the NCAA Tournament with Iowa having lost four of five games heading into the NCAA Tournament.

To come this close to making the Final Four only to fall short will hurt for a while, especially for Stirtz, because it was his only chance as a senior transfer.

But what a season it was for the 6-foot-4 native of Liberty, Missouri as he etched his name in Hawkeye legend and lore in just one season, taking Iowa to the Elite Eight, where no Iowa team had gone since 1987.

“From our lens, this group’s done a lot for the University of Iowa,” McCollum said in his post-game press conference “It’s always hard right afterwards because, as a coach, you think about what you could have done better because it’s just the nature of your mind. And you’re sitting there, man, I mismanaged this, I did this poorly, I didn’t do this, trying to put your players in the best position to win and, you know, you don’t feel like you totally did.

“But came out great. But again, I think if you ask these guys, they would like a second chance at this to be able to win that game because they probably still feel like they could have. But they did set a foundation for the University of Iowa and hopefully for the future.”

Iowa bolted to a 9-0 lead, and then following an Illinois basket by Keaton Wagler to end its scoring drought, Stirtz made a three, expanding the lead to double-digits at at 12-2.

That was a significant change from the regular season when Illinois jumped to a big lead in the opening minutes of the first half and then hung on for a 75-69 victory on Jan. 11 in Iowa City.

In Saturday’s game, the Illini responded to Iowa’s quick start by scoring 11 straight points. But then Stirtz answered with another three, giving Iowa a 15-11 lead with less than 12 minutes left in the first half.

With Iowa leading 22-20, and with 7:43 left in the first half, the game was delayed for approximately 11 minutes due to a horn in the arena that would not shut off. The delay lasted long enough where fans in the arena started booing.

The players were also given a chance to take warm-up shots due to the length of the delay.

If that wasn’t enough, the Jumbotron hanging above the playing court also stopped working.

But Stirtz didn’t.

He made his third three of the first half to give Iowa a 27-20 lead.

Iowa led 32-28 at halftime as Stirtz scored nearly half of his team’s points, finishing the first half with 15 points.

The Hawkeyes never trailed in the first half, and led by as many as 10 points, and were just 20 minutes from advancing to the Final Four for the first time in nearly a half century.

Iowa made 6-of-12 threes in the first half, while Illinois made just 1-of-8; a 15-point difference that helped Iowa lead throughout the first half.

But there was one more half to play and the second half would be hotly contested throughout, including one stretch where there were nine lead change over six minutes.

Illinois ultimately had too much size and firepower, and is now headed to the the Final Four for the first time since 2005..

Hawkeye fans will eventually move on from this loss and realize that the season was a huge success, better than anybody, other than maybe Ben McCollum, probably could have imagined.

By making a long overdue run the in the NCAA Tournament, and by doing so under a first-year head coach, Iowa has helped its cause significantly from an NIL, and from a recruiting standpoint.

Because there is no better sales pitch than being a March Madness storyline.

Stirtz was asked after Saturday’s loss what he could take away from his brief time as a Hawkeye.

He played under McCollum for four seasons in college; the first two at Northwest Missouri State, his junior season at Drake and this season at Iowa where he capped a spectacular career.

“You can’t really control what anyone else is going to say about you, but hopefully it’s good,” Stirtz said. “I just gave it my all in this Hawkeye uniform. But I just hope that they have continued success and that’s all I want for them. They will do just that. I don’t know, it’s hard to put everything into words right now, but, yeah, I gave it my all and we all gave it our all and it was a fun run.”