Ben McCollum spent 16 years at Division 2 Northwest Missouri State, but now the four-time D2 national champion is on a meteoric rise through the D1 coaching ranks. In his lone season at Drake, McCollum led the Bulldogs to a 31-win season and the program’s first NCAA Tournament victory since 1971, and now he’s on the move from the Missouri Valley Conference to the Big Ten.
The day after his second-round exit and a cryptic postage response about his future, McCollum is reportedly set to become the next head coach at Iowa, replacing long-time Hawkeye Fran McCaffery. After an early Big Ten Tournament exit and back-to-back seasons without an NCAA Tournament bid, Iowa fired McCaffery and will be expecting a quick turnaround under McCollum.
The D2 champion will bring his disciplined and methodical offensive style from Des Moines to Iowa City, but more important are the talented players from his Drake roster who could follow their head coach in the transfer portal. He may not bring his entire team, but these three players certainly belong on a Big Ten contender next year.
Manyawu is already well-traveled throughout his two-year collegiate career, spending his freshman season at Wyoming before joining McCollum at Drake. At 6-foot-8, Manyawu won’t be big enough to play full-time center in the Big Ten, but he could be a valuable bench big if he follows McCollum to Iowa.
A junior college transfer from Northwest Florida State, Banks easily assimilated to D1 basketball, earning MVC Sixth Man of the Year honors while averaging 10 points and five rebounds. At 6-foot-7, Banks provided Drake with crucial size and athleticism as a physical switchable defender capable of holding his ground on the interior and moving his feet on the perimeter.
Without the threat of an outside jump shot, Banks could find himself a bit undersized in the Big Ten, but he held his own against Missouri and Texas Tech in March.
Stirtz followed McCollum from Northwest Missouri State and he’s likely to do the same this offseason after blossoming into a mid-major star. Stirtz won Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year and even earned an All-American honorable mention. The 6-foot-4 junior point guard averaged 19.2 points 5.7 assists and 2.1 steals this season and scored 21 points in both of Drake’s two tournament games.
Stirtz is a stone-cold killer on the offensive end, always making the right decision with the ball in his hands, and calmly bailing out the Bulldogs late in the shot clock. He’ll immediately be the second-best point guard in the Big Ten behind Purdue’s First-Team All-American Braden Smith, and honestly, if you were to advocate for Stirtz over Smith, I’d be open to having that argument.