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HOUSTON — Three minutes into Iowa’s Sweet 16 game against Nebraska on Thursday night, a casualty occurred on the Hawkeyes’ sideline.
Iowa coach Ben McCollum, already red-cheeked and furious at his team’s passive start in a game they trailed by 10 points, snapped a dry erase marker into two pieces in the timeout huddle. Ink went everywhere.
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“We called them into the huddle and just said very nicely, ‘I’d like you to play harder, guys,’ and that seemed to work,” McCollum quipped, before looking to his left where Hawkeyes guards Tate Sage and Bennett Stirtz sat trying and failing to contain their smiles.
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“Am I right? That how that went?” McCollum asked his players.
“Yes,” Sage and Stirtz replied, nodding dutifully.
McCollum’s fiery disposition and ability to extract winning performances from his players have made Iowa’s first-year coach a fast-rising star in his profession. He was coaching in Division II two seasons ago, and on Thursday at Toyota Center helped the Hawkeyes author a thrilling comeback and advance to the Elite Eight for the first time since 1987.
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Iowa trailed Nebraska nearly the entire game until Stirtz, the senior guard who followed McCollum from Division II Northwest Missouri State to Drake and then to Iowa, drained a go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:10 remaining.
“Hasn’t changed one bit,” Stirtz said of McCollum. “He’s been the same coach despite all the national attention and that’s why I respect him so much.”
On Saturday in the Elite Eight, Iowa will play an Illinois team coached by Brad Underwood, who started his career coaching at the junior college level.
The last time Iowa was in the Elite Eight, McCollum was a 6-year-old Hawkeyes fan living in Iowa City. He grew up attending Hawkeyes football and basketball games, but his own playing career began in junior…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/broken-marker-unbreakable-resolve-ben-044039256.html
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Publish date : 2026-03-27 04:40:00
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