Iowa has found its next men’s basketball coach — and he’s no stranger to winning.
Ben McCollum, a native of Iowa and one of the most successful coaches in college basketball over the past decade, has been named the 23rd head coach in program history, the university announced Monday.
McCollum arrives in Iowa City with a championship pedigree and a reputation for building consistent, high-level programs. He won four NCAA Division II national titles (2017, 2019, 2021, 2022) at Northwest Missouri State, where his teams became the gold standard for sustained excellence at the D-II level.
In his first season at the Division I level, McCollum wasted no time making an impression in 2024-25. He led Drake to a program-record 31 wins, swept the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament titles, and guided the Bulldogs to the second round of the NCAA Tournament — a run that turned heads and accelerated his already-rising stock.
Over 16 seasons as a head coach, McCollum has compiled a staggering 426-95 record, good for an .818 winning percentage — the fifth-highest mark in the history of men’s college basketball.
Now, he returns to his home state with a new challenge: reviving an Iowa program hungry to contend in the Big Ten.
