By Hawk Fanatic

At this time a year ago, the Iowa men’s basketball team was basically starting over under new head coach Ben McCollum.

The roster had pretty much been gutted with only two players from the Fran McCaffery coaching era choosing to stay at Iowa after he was fired.

Iowa also had failed to make the NCAA Tournament in each of the past two seasons, causing expectations to be tempered and frustration to grow.

Turn the calendar back to the present and the circumstances almost seem surreal; the fact that Iowa is now coming off its first trip to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight in 39 years.

The star player from last season’s team – point guard Bennett Stirtz – has moved on the NBA after being picked in the first round, but he leaves behind a talented and experienced roster, which also has been bolstered by two key additions from the transfer portal – 7-3 center Andrew McKeever and 6-2 guard Ty’Reek Coleman.

The current Iowa players also will have some added motivation after it was announced at Big Ten Media Day on Thursday in suburban Chicago that Iowa was picked 10th in the preseason conference rankings.

“I think we’ve got a lot of guys that think they’re under-valued, that think they have something to prove” said guard Kael Combs, who represented Iowa at Big Ten Media Day along with third-year forward Cooper Koch. “So just bring that mindset of kind of the underdog mentality, we’re going to impose our will on you. I think just going along with that is going to get us back to the Elite Eight.”

In addition to Stirtz, Iowa also lost forwards Tavion Banks and Alvaro Folgueiras from last season’s team. Banks and Folgueiras, who now plays for Louisville, finished last season as Iowa’s second and third leading scorers on the team, respectively, with averages of 10.2 and 8.4 points per game.

Sharp-shooting guard Brendan Hausen also has moved on after playing one season for the Hawkeyes.

Iowa relied almost exclusively on Stirtz to make the big shots in critical situations. But now that he’s gone, one of the questions surrounding this team is who will fill that role?

“I don’t think we quite know yet,” Koch said. “We haven’t really gotten a scrimmage in yet against another team. But we’ve got a lot of guys that can make that play. It’s just going to come down to maybe who’s hot that game, and just kind of figure it out down the stretch.”

The challenge of replacing Stirtz won’t fall on just one player, but Combs and the 6-2 Coleman will likely see most of the action at point guard.

“It’ll be more by committee,” McCollum said of replacing Stirtz. “Obviously, we have some good guys in the system.”

This will mark the first time in four years that McCollum hasn’t had Stirtz as his starting point guard.

Stirtz played his first two seasons in college under McCollum at Division II Northwest Missouri State, and he also played for McCollum at Drake in 2024-25, leading the Bulldogs to a 31-4 record.

McCollum was asked Thursday at Big Ten Media Day how his team changes now that Stirtz has moved on.

“Similar to how we do every year, we try to build it around our personnel,” McCollum said. “What our personnel says to do, that’s what we’re going to do offensively. We have mores shooting this year. We’re a little bit bigger, and I think we can be better defensively.

“I think that last five minutes is the biggest issue; where do we go to in that last five minutes and we’re till trying to figure that piece out. I don’t think you’re going to know right away because that’s where Bennett was so good, that last five minutes where he could take over a game.”

With the addition of McKeever, Iowa has addressed one of its weaknesses from last season, which was a lack of size in the post.

Iowa’s lack of size in the post was a key factor in the 71-59 loss to Illinois in the Elite Eight.

McKeever, who is the tallest player in program history, averaged 8.2 points, 9.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists last season for Saint Mary’s College in his home state of California. He also had 28 blocks, 18 steals and finished with a .500 field goal percentage (105-of-210) while also leading the leading the West Coast Conference in rebounding.

“He can really change the game for us,” Combs said. “Just him having that rim presence, offensively and defensively. He’s going alter shots, he’s going to block shots. Ball-screen coverage is pretty easy for him because he can kind of stay back and guard two.

“So yeah, he changes us defensively a lot.”

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2026-27 Big Ten Men’s Basketball preseason team rankings:

As conducted by the Columbus Dispatch with first-place votes in parenthesis.