Ben McCollum recalls hiring process by Iowa

Iowa named Ben McCollum as their next men’s basketball coach less than two weeks after its season ended on March 24th. However, the Hawkeyes did have to wait a few days longer as McCollum had his own season to finish elsewhere.

In an interview with Jon Rothstein at CBS Sports, McCollum explained the hiring process that eventually got him to Iowa City. He said it was one that moved fast, but did take a pause from him as he coached Drake (31-4) in the 2025 NCAA Tournament. That left it to his representation to handle until he was done in March Madness.

“Quickly,” McCollum recalled. “You know, I think, with these jobs, there’s a couple ways to handle them. And, for us, what we did was, there was contact, I think maybe a week, week and a half before the NCAA Tournament, after our conference tournament ended. And, in that, you know, discussion or conversation, I just say, hey, I really have to focus on the team that we have, that, you know, these guys are loyal to me, I’m loyal to them. You know, I’m not going to be able to do anything during the NCAA Tournament.

“My athletic director, who’s awesome, Beth (Goetz)? She respected that. You know, obviously, there’s things in regards – and that’s why you have an agent where they navigate a lot of this stuff. But, you know, I didn’t, I maybe talked to my agent a couple times but it was never, like, hey, do you want to do this or, hey, this that or the other. It was just, you know, hey, good luck, that kind of thing.”

McCollum was going to be a candidate during this offseason’s carousel, considering what he did during his debut in Division I. He helped lead Drake to its best record in school history in winning both conference titles in the Missouri Valley before earning its first win in the NCAA Tournament in 54 years with an upset of No. 6 Missouri.

However, the Bulldogs would lose in a 77-64 defeat to No. 3 Texas Tech in the Round of 32 in Wichita. At that point, Iowa had McCollum on campus by the following day before announcing his hiring to start that next week on Monday.

“We lost Saturday night and then she did not reach back out until Sunday morning, I think maybe around 10 a.m. -ish. And then it’s like, okay, I’ve waited and I’ve been patient,” McCollum said. “So then we came up that evening, to the University of Iowa. And then, the next morning, we decided that it was the right move and took the job.”

McCollum finished the job he had to do first with the Bulldogs in getting their first tournament win in over half a century. Then, once he did, he was soon on to his next stop as he now tries to have the same success at Iowa as he had at Drake, as well as in Division II.