The 2025-26 season for the Iowa Hawkeyes is going to be the start of a new era with new head coach Ben McCollum in place after the program parted ways with longtime head coach Fran McCafferey. With McCollum at the helm for Iowa, several of his former Drake players followed him via the transfer portal, including Bennett Stirtz who was one of the top mid-major guards in college basketball last season.
Bennett Stirtz began his college basketball career playing Division 2, then made the jump to Division 1 with Drake, and is now making the transfer to a high-major in the Iowa Hawkeyes. During a recent appearance on longtime college basketball analyst Andy Katz’s podcast, ‘The Sideline with Andy Katz,’ Stirtz spoke about the possible pressure that comes with playing at a different level the past couple of seasons.
“Honestly I didn’t feel any pressure, not like I’m feeling it right now. There’s just a lot more fans, Big Ten, bigger school. Drake is just a super small school so I didn’t really feel any pressure last year,” Stirtz said. “Just with the more fans in Iowa, I’m definitely feeling the pressure more this year, but we all like the pressure so it’s been fun.”
Stirtz is joining a Hawkeyes program that finished last season at 17-16 overall, 7-13 in the Big Ten and missed the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive year. But the roster overall is a brand new one as most of last season’s contributors hit the transfer portal following McCaffery’s departure.
Last season’s was Stirtz’s first in Division 1 after playing the first two seasons of his career at D2 at Northwest Missouri State. He won the Missouri Valley Conference Larry Bird Player of the Year and the MVC Newcomer of the Year awards.
Stirtz appeared in 35 games at a little over 39 minutes per game. He averaged 19.2 points, 4.3 rebounds, 5.7 assists and 2.1 steals with splits of 49.8 percent shooting from the field, 39.5 percent shooting from the three-point line and 79.4 percent shooting from the free-throw line.
