By Pat Harty

CORALVILLE, Iowa – It was just one exhibition game against an over-matched Division II opponent, so it would make little sense to read too much into anything that occurred during the Iowa men’s basketball team’s 88-64 victory over Illinois-Springfield on Tuesday at Xtream Arena.

Iowa head coach Ben McCollum was able to use a lot of different lineups and player rotations and his team made it through the game without anybody getting injured.

His team certainly struggled at times, but that’s the point of playing an exhibition game in that it gave McCollum sort of a measuring stick with the regular season starting next Tuesday against Lipscomb.

“Typical exhibition or scrimmage for teams of mine,” McCollum said. “This is why I do them in private. We just didn’t play very well.

“Part of it was it was kind of unique defensively where they kind of just give you shots a little bit and kind of play percentages. And we took the bait a little bit too much.”

Iowa made 10-of-26 shots from 3-point range and had five different players that made at least one three.

Iowa also had a 37-32 advantage on the boards, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy McCollum.

“I was disappointed in our rebounding,” McCollum said. “We just didn’t play very good.”

McCollum sad his team’s performance in Tuesday’s exhibition wasn’t nearly as impressive as how it played in its last private scrimmage against Saint Louis.

“We played really well in our scrimmage the other day,” McCollum said. “So hopefully, we’ll flip it around.

“Part of it, too, is the lineups are all jacked up, too. But we’ll get better.”

Iowa is coming off a season in which it advanced to the NCAA Elite for the first time since 1987 in McCollum’s first season as head coach.

The Hawkeyes only finished 10-10 in conference play last season, but then caught fire in March Madness, winning three games over Clemson, Florida and Nebraska.

Those three wins completely changed how last season was perceived and gave Iowa some much-needed momentum heading into the offseason.

Iowa faces the daunting task of moving on without former star point guard Bennett Stirtz, who now plays for the Oklahoma City Thunder after being selected in the first round of the 2026 NBA Daft.

Stirtz was the heart and soul of last season’s team, as well as being McCollum’s starting point guard for each of the past four seasons, and for three different teams: Northwest Missouri State, Drake and Iowa.

There will obviously be some growing pains as the team moves on without Stirtz and Tuesday’s exhibition game was one of the first steps in that learning process.

Iowa’s starting lineup for Tuesday’s exhibition consisted of guards Kael Combs and Isaia Howard, forwards Tate Sage and Cooper Koch and 7-foot-3 center Andrew McKeever, who transferred from Saint Mary’s this past summer.

McCollum downplayed the significance of Tuesday’s starting lineup.

“It’s just guys that have started before that can kind of handle the environment,” McCollum said. “You can’t take much stock early; it’s such a new team because we do have returners, but we just have a ways to go in regards to what we’re going to be and how we’re going to do things.”

Guards Peyton McCollum and Ty’Reek Coleman were the first two players off the bench for Iowa.

Coleman transferred from Illinois State this past summer while Peyton McCollum is in his second season as a Hawkeye, and is the son of Ben McCollum.

Peyton McCollum made two 3-point baskets and was among four Iowa players that scored in double figures with 10 points while playing 21:03 minutes.

His first season as a Hawkeye was cut short by a season-ending foot injury last January.

“He’s battled back and he competes every day in practice,” Ben McCollum said of his 6-2 son. “His practice analytics are off the charts, meaning he wins and he did a great job in both scrimmages.”

Combs led Iowa in scoring with 13 points, while Koch and 6-11 forward Trevin Jirak finished with 10 points apiece.

The 6-5 Howard led Iowa with nine rebounds and scored eight points, but was just 2-of-7 from 3-point range. He was wide open for some of his threes, but they just didn’t fall, which according to Ben McCollum is way different than how Howard has shot from three in preseason practice, including both secret scrimmages.

“He’s been shooting it great,” Ben McCollum said of Howard, a third-year player from Plattsburg, Missouri. “That was the worst I’ve seen him shoot it all year. And it ain’t even close, and he was wide open.

McCollum said Howard scored over 20 points in the second scrimmage and made 6-of-9 shots from three.

“He’ll be just fine,” McCollum said of Howard, who was among six former Drake players that followed McCollum to Iowa after the 2024-25 season. “Part of him is he’s super amped all the time, too. But he better be willing; he’s going to shoot it.”

McCollum wants his team to shoot threes, and he mentioned proudly that Iowa made 20-of-46 threes in its most recent 50-minute secret scrimmage.

“Yeah, we’re going to shoot more threes,” McCollum said. “I think we took the bait a little bit where they just would not guard a couple people so you just take like the open shot rather than getting the shot that you want. And when you take the open shot you’re not there for rebounding and we’re actually a pretty good offensive rebounding team. We didn’t show it tonight because we never knew when the shot was going up because we never got them in rotation because they were just kind of off you so you just shot it.

“But that’s where you just go inside for the whole game, which is something we could have done but just chose not to because we needed some rhythm.”

Iowa assisted on 21 of it 28 baskets and was led in assists by McKeever with seven.

The players also enjoyed playing in a different environment.

“I think it was good just getting a change of scenery,” Combs said. “And then just playing somebody else. So I’m glad that fans came out and we played alright.”

Iowa led 42-28 at halftime and had eight players that scored at least three points in the first half, led by Combs, Koch and forward Cam Manyawu with six points apiece.

The 6-9 Manyawu started Tuesday’s game on the bench after having started every game for McCollum over the past two seasons at Iowa and Drake.

His head coach seemed to be sending Manyawu a message.

“Here’s Cam for me, if I had a favorite player, which I don’t, Cam would be my favorite player,” Ben McCollum said. “I don’t have them, but if I did, he’d be may favorite.

“I want Cam to go and lead. I want him to lead in every way shape and form because he can and he has not done that yet. And I’m wanting him to do it and I’m going to force him to do it. And now everybody knows that I’m wanting Cam to lead. And so he can either lead and be the great Cam that I know he can be because I want him to be great.”

Second-year forward Trey Thompson and first-year guard/forward Ethan Harris were two of the last three players for Iowa to enter the game with slightly less than four minutes to play in the second half.

Both players were four-star recruits in high school, and with Thompson also having a year under his belt at Iowa, McCollum was told by a member of the media in the post-game press conference that their lack of playing time was being discussed on social media by fans who apparently thought they would play more.

“The rotation could change; it’s not one of those things that is locked in and set in stone,” McCollum said. “Outside of going into why some people do go in and why some people don’t, I think it’s just more of an eternal thing. It’s who we think have done it in practice and more often than most consistently from a winning perspective.

“We have so many different stats and tools and objective measures. And then there’s just subjective measures, right. And so then you also have to think, okay, who are some people going to beat out? Like who are they going to play over?

“There’s a lot that goes into it, but it’s a long season. We kind of treat these a little bit like an NBA preseason.”

Iowa’s approach will change for Tuesday’s season opener at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.

“We won’t treat the next one like that,” McCollum said of the Lipscomb game. “We’re going to get after it and really scout that and get ready to play.”