After taking care of business against Prairie View A&M in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament the Gators will now prepare for a quick turnaround and a tough scout for the Round Of 32 where they will take on the 9-seed Iowa Hawkeyes. All 9-seeds advanced over 8-seeds this season, and Iowa was able to advance after controlling a game for 40 minutes against Clemson winning 67-61.
The Hawkeyes are in the first year of the Ben McCollum era, someone who just might be the most underrated coach in America–though people are quickly taking note. Before getting a D1 job McCollum was at D2 Northwest Missouri State, a program he built into an absolute powerhouse. McCollum won four, yes, count it, FOUR National Championships at Northwest Missouri State, and despite doing it at a young age a lot of athletic directors at the division one level were reluctant to give him an opportunity. Finally, in 2024 he got a chance at Drake where he was immediately successful. Ranked 133rd in KenPom to start the season, McCollum got the Bulldogs all the way to 53rd, not only winning the Missouri Valley Conference (arguably the toughest one-bid league in the country) but going on to upset Missouri in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Not only did they win, but they controlled the game and won by double digits.
Doing so well in his first D1 season at a very difficult job, McCollum earned the chance to head up Iowa, a program that is near the bottom of the Big Ten in NIL.
McCollum, who has only won at tough jobs his entire life, willed his group of underrecruited players to a 9-seed where they were able to beat Clemson.
This is not the most talented, athletic, or physically gifted group of players at the high-major level, but they play an extremely intelligent style of basketball and are led by a savant head coach, and while the deck will be stacked against them–it’s hard to ever count out a Ben McCollum team.
Iowa is led by star point guard Bennett Stirtz who is one of the best stories in the sport, and in a lot of ways what people want college basketball to look like in the transfer portal era. Stirtz initially was a D2 player at Northwest Missouri State before following McCollum to Drake, and then once again following him to Iowa. If he hit the open market Stirtz would have been one of the highest paid players in the entire country but instead took a miniscule fraction to play for the coach who first gave him an opportunity, and McCollum has featured him in everything the Hawkeyes do. There isn’t a player that is more important to his team than McCollum is to the Hawkeyes, and the raw numbers give some indication. Stirtz averages 20.0 points and 4.5 assists, with the next highest scorer on the team averaging 10.5 points. He also almost never leaves the floor averaging 37.5 minutes per game–often only seeing the bench in garbage time. Stirtz is not the fastest player, he’s not the biggest, and he certainly isn’t the most athletic–but he might be the smartest player in the country who uses his intellect to slow the game down and make the right read at pretty much every opportunity whether it’s when to attack, when to get to his pull up, or when to manipulate the defense with his eyes before hitting a skip to a shooter or a bounce pass to a cutter. For Iowa to upset the Gators they will need a legacy performance from Stirtz, but he is always up to the challenge and has won at every level he’s been at despite doubters. As he is clearly the most important player on the Hawkeyes, look for Florida to put all their defensive attention on him as they live with anyone else trying to beat them.
When Florida lost to Vanderbilt in the SEC Tournament a lot of coaches took note of how the Commodores looked to pick and pop on any opportunity, rolling the dice on if forwards could make enough threes to win the game. Iowa will likely look to do this, putting the ball in the hands of Stirtz to put pressure on the rim while forwards Alvaro Folgueiras (a Robert Morris transfer) and Cooper Koch, a freshman, try their luck from deep. Folgueiras is a 32% three-point shooter while Koch is at 39%, and both can really get hot and Iowa will probably try their chances with these two bombing away and it will be interesting to see if Florida allows it, or if they trust their drop coverage and play the percentages. Todd Golden remained a believer in the strategy even though they got the wrong side of shooting luck against Vanderbilt, so you can probably expect the Gators to continue the drop coverage–especially in order to neutralize the pull-up shooting threat of Stirtz.
Iowa is going to be giving up a lot of size to the Gators at the forward spots so they will need a big game from Cam Manyawu, a 6’9”, 250 pound center who is their largest and most physical player. Not much more than a lob catcher on the offensive end, Manyawu is out there to defend and set hard screens and he’ll need to play some inspired basketball against the Gators given the matchup.
Now, when it comes to Iowa–we can’t get much further without talking about their distinct style of offense, particularly how it relates to tempo. Think about the slowest basketball you’ve seen recently. Now think of a team playing slower. Now, think about that team playing even slower than that. Okay, now you’ve probably envisioned how Iowa plays.
McCollum has always been dedicated to his slow, methodical style of play where every possession is treated with utmost value and the ball is treated like gold. They will walk the ball up the court, call a set, and with precision go through multiple reads and options as they wait for the defense to slip up just once. Iowa’s ability to drag teams down into the mud and play at a snail’s pace is a big reason why they have been able to hang with faster, more athletic, and more talented teams, and you can bet they are going to try to make the game with Florida as slow as is reasonably possible. Florida, of course–will try to do the exact opposite.
The slow tempo of Iowa is made even more deadly by the offensive mind of McCollum who crafts brilliant sets that pick on mismatches or the defensive tendencies of an opponent. Because they are never in a rush, they will make sure spacing is perfect before they start an action, and they won’t move until it’s exactly ready to go. You’ll also see them go back to the same sets over, and over, and over again if they work–so any weak points in Florida’s defense could be exploited.
One of the reasons the NCAA Tournament is such an amazing sporting event is the way that teams with completely contrasting styles can clash, and this will be two teams on the absolute polar opposites of roster building and style of play, with an extremely talented Florida roster trying to play at 100 miles an hour against a gritty group of underrecruited Hawkeyes trying to slow things down to rush hour traffic.
This game will occur on Sunday, March 22nd, with the tip time not yet established at the time of publishing.