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Myron Medcalf
multiple authors
HOUSTON — Ben McCallum was angry. Saliva sat at the corner of his lips, but he did not wipe it away. He was playing center at the start of Thursday’s Sweet 16 meeting and his Iowa team was 10 points behind Nebraska.
stood next to him Bennett SturtzThe Hawkeyes’ staunch star who witnessed many of McCollum’s outbursts. Stirtz was not surprised.
After Iowa’s come-from-behind win over Nebraska, Sturtz said, “He slammed his whiteboard and broke his marker on the hardwood floor. Ink spilled everywhere.” “That’s what he likes to do. He’s a negative guy, and then our assistant coaches are positive guys. He was just telling us we sucked and we were soft.”
McCollum had a different interpretation of that defining moment against the Cornhuskers.
“They were moving and cutting, and I didn’t even know what was happening. So… we called [the team] “I went out into the crowd and said very nicely, ‘I want you to play tougher, guys,’ and it seemed to work,” McCullum said. is not that right? Isn’t that what happened?
Sturtz nodded.
“Yes,” he replied.
McCallum is certainly demonstrative. Look no further than last Sunday Near collision with Florida coach Todd Golden During the upset of No. 1 seed Iowa in the round of 32.
Stirtz is the opposite. He is always calm.
That fire-and-ice duo of McCollum and Sturtz — who are at their third school together after stints at Division II Northwest Missouri State (2022-24) and Drake (2024-25) — has fueled Iowa’s surprise run to the Elite Eight. The Hawkeyes went just 10–10 in the Big Ten, still on the verge of their first Final Four appearance since 1980. This is the fourth time in four years that McCollum and Sturtz have advanced to the NCAA Tournament together. It is also his furthest progress at any level.
First, they made it to the second round of the 2023 Division II NCAA Tournament, where Sturtz scored seven points in a loss to Southern Nazarene. A year after that, they reached the Division II Sweet 16, where Sturtz scored 12 points against Minnesota State before losing to the eventual national champion on a buzzer-beater. And after making the jump to Division I with Drake last season, they won a first-round game as Sturtz led the 11-seeded Bulldogs past 6-seeded Missouri by 20 points in the first round before running into Elite Eight-bound Texas Tech in the second round.
It was no surprise when Stritz followed McCollum to Iowa — or when the 2024-25 Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year thrived in McCollum’s system. The senior guard earned second-team All-Big Ten honors after finishing fifth in the conference in scoring (19.7 ppg), but has saved her best for the NCAA Tournament. His 3-pointer with 2:10 left in Thursday’s win over Nebraska gave Iowa its first lead of the game. The Hawkeyes never trailed again, setting up the win in Saturday’s matchup against Illinois (6:09 p.m. ET).
0:17
Bennett Sturtz gives Iowa lead with 3
Bennett Sturtz knocked down a big 3-pointer for the Hawkeyes.
McCallum said, “You see him on the floor, and then you see me on the sidelines – polar opposites in personality. Not polar opposites in values.” “He’s super competitive. I’m super competitive. I think he operates with a level of humility. I think he’s a really tough kid. I feel like he serves others, all those different things.”
Sturtz said: “He shoots it straight. Even when it’s hard and even when it’s tough. He pushes you beyond your limits, and I think that’s where the confidence comes in… He just pushes everybody on this team, and honestly, you can see the benefit he gets from that.”
Minnesota State head coach Matt Margenthaler isn’t surprised by the duo’s success this March. He still has nightmares about Sturtz and McCollum’s Northwest Missouri State squad nearly derailing his team’s Division II championship run in 2023.
Margenthaler argues that their rise is a sign for Division II basketball – proof that players and coaches at that level can also be stars at the next level.
“You always question, I think, when you move up a level, ‘Can he do it at the next level in the Missouri Valley Conference?’ And then he proved it in a year,” Margenthaler told ESPN. “And then, ‘Can he do it again in the Big Ten?’ And then he continues to surprise the coaching world with what he can do.”
“[Stirtz’s] The confidence has grown, and grown, and grown,” Margenthaler said. “He’s obviously a Division I basketball player, but a player who has made himself better every year. I mean, what a story: those two guys together and what they’re doing.”
And if you ask McCallum and Sturtz, their work isn’t done yet.
“In 20 years, it’s going to be a crazy story. A guy who goes from Division II with his coach and then goes to Drake and then goes to the University of Iowa and actually goes further in the Division I tournament than he does in Division II,” McCollum said. “I think when you’re a player-coach [relationship] Sometimes, you obviously care about each other and love each other and all that, but you just don’t connect. [this] A kind of level. But it’s been a very tough journey, but it’s not over yet.”
