By Pat Harty
IOWA CITY, Iowa – The Iowa men’s basketball team has now finished the nonconference portion of its schedule under new head coach Ben McCollum, and for the most part, it has been a success.
No. 25 Iowa crushed UMass Lowell 90-62 on Monday afternoon at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, finishing 10-1 against nonconference opponents.
The only loss was against Iowa State, a 66-62 setback in Ames, and against one of the best teams in the country.
The win against UMass Lowell, on the other hand, was yet another case in which an overmatched Quad 4 opponent couldn’t compete with Iowa, whose players were well rested after having not played a game in over week.
Iowa built a 24-point lead (47-23) in the first half while shooting a sizzling 69.2 percent from the field.
The only part of the first half in which Iowa didn’t dominate was the final minute or so as the River Hawks closed the half on a 7-0 scoring run, trimming the deficit to 47-30 at halftime.
Iowa re-established its dominance in the second half and then cruised to its 11th win on the season.
Senior point guard Bennett Stirtz led four Iowa players in double figures with 22 points in Sunday’s win. Junior forwards Cam Manyawu and Alvaro Folgueiras both scored 14 points, while senior forward Tavion Banks finished with 12.
Stirtz also led Iowa with eight assists and he now has 500 career assists, though he hardly was in the mood to celebrate that milestone with so many games still left to be played.
“We’ll look at that after the season,” said Stirtz, who played his freshman and sophomore seasons under McCollum at Northwest Missouri State and his junior season under McCollum at Drake. ”
Iowa forward Cam Manyawu protecting the rim against UMass Lowell. Photo courtesy of hawkeyesports.com.
Seven of Iowa’s nonconference wins, including Monday’s victory, were against Quad 4 mid-major opponents that had little to no chance of winning.
And while it could be argued that Iowa has played too many nonconference games against overmatched opponents, all seven of the wins against mid-majors were by double figures, including four by more than 30 points.
Iowa’s three other nonconference wins were against Xavier at home and against Ole Miss and Grand Canyon at a neutral site in Palm Springs, California.
Ole Miss is the only nonconference opponent that lost by single digits, falling 74-69 in late November.
“You still have to maintain your habits and we were talking about that during the media timeouts today,” Stirtz said. “You can’t practice or play with bad habits because then in the big-time games they’ll show out.
“So we’re just trying to play consistent each and every game no matter the opponent.”
The lopsided wins have allowed for McCollum to experiment with different lineups, for him to go deep into his bench in multiple games, and for his players to build confidence.
But now the competition will improve significantly as Iowa resumes Big Ten play against UCLA on Saturday at Carver-Hawkeye Arena.
Iowa split its first two Big Ten games in December, losing at Michigan State 71-52 in the conference opener on Dec. 2 and then defeating Maryland 83-64 on Dec. 6 in Iowa City.
“I think it’s good and we learned a lot about ourselves and our team,” Stirtz said of the nonconference schedule. “But I don’t think we’ve done much yet. So we’ve got a lot to prove and we’re going head-first into Big Ten play.”
The chance to compete in the Big Ten is one of the reasons the 6-foot-10 Folgueiras transferred to Iowa from Robert Morris.
“This is where we want to be and it’s why everyone joined the roster this year, for this kind of game” Folgueiras said of facing UCLA.
McCollum gave his players five days off during the Christmas break and he thinks that might have effected their execution for stretches in Monday’s game.
Overall, though, he thinks the nonconference schedule has served its purpose, even with so many lopsided wins against Quad 4 opponents.
“I think it’s prepared us. I think we’ve gotten better,” McCollum said. “I think guys have really improved. They’ve grown. We know what it is. Our two road games (against Michigan State and Iowa State) were fantastic games for us to play. They got us ready and now we’ve just got to carry it over to Big Ten play on Saturday.”
Most of Iowa’s nonconference schedule was set before McCollum was hired as head coach last March.
McCollum said he wants to upgrade the nonconference schedule by facing more Power 5 opponents on neutral courts.
But he also pointed out that Iowa defeated all of its Quad 4 opponents by lopsided scores, which helps its net ranking.
Iowa entered Monday’s game No. 11 in the NET men’s rankings, fourth best in the Big Ten.
The NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) rankings are the main source used in evaluating and ranking teams. The NET determines which teams make the NCAA Tournament and where teams will be ranked.
“It’s not cheating the system because you still have to beat those teams by a lot,” McCollum said. “And that’s not easy to do. These teams aren’t just laying over. They’re good teams, even some of your Quad fours; man, those are good, well-coached teams that pose some threats.
“And so you still have to do that, and because you do that, then your analytics go up.”