Ben McCollum’s first year with Iowa men’s basketball exceeded all reasonable expectations. Now, Hawkeyes fans hope that he, unlike so many great college basketball players over the last few decades, won’t be one-and-done.
McCollum got his start in coaching at Northwest Missouri State, the Division II program at which he played in the early 2000s. He served as the Bearcats’ head coach from 2009 to ‘24, winning four national championships. That impressive run vaulted him into Division I, and he hit the ground running, leading Drake to a 31–4 record and an NCAA tournament upset of No. 6 seed Missouri in 2024–25. After one year in the Missouri Valley Conference, McCollum hit the road once again, taking over at Iowa after the Hawkeyes let Fran McCaffery go at the end of his 15th season with the program.
Will McCollum continue to climb the ladder with a fourth school in as many years? Ahead of Iowa’s loss to conference rival Illinois in Sunday’s Elite Eight contest, he tried to quell any concerns of the Hawkeye faithful that he could jump after a year. (His answer begins around the 12:15 mark of the video below.)
“Yes. Those are—whatever those are ... those are all lies,” McCollum said, when asked about rumors that he could be in the mix for other jobs and whether he will be Iowa’s coach in 2026–27.
“The only person that would ever know would be—well, three people, would be my athletic director, my wife and ... that’s about it, I guess. Two people,” McCollum said with a laugh.
North Carolina, one of college basketball’s most prominent programs, is the biggest open job as of now
North Carolina fired Tar Heels alum Hubert Davis after an up-and-down tenure that saw the program reach a national championship and beat Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski in both his final regular season game and final career game (in the Final Four, no less). UNC was inconsistent under Davis, however, never quite reaching those heights again.
The 2025–26 team was dealt a tough blow with the injuries to star freshman Caleb Wilson, which knocked him out for the stretch run of the regular season as well as the NCAA tournament. Even without Wilson, the program’s first-round loss to No. 11 seed VCU—a game that it led by 19 points—proved to be too much for the powers at be in Chapel Hill to look past. Now, a program that has been dominated by Dean Smith and his coaching tree since the early 1960s will likely bring in a coach without those Tar Heel roots.
North Carolina can and will likely swing for the fences with its next hire. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will poach a coach from a peer program, or even an NBA team, however. Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd already shrugged off the idea of leaving Tucson. Alabama athletic director Greg Byrne posted a photo with Crimson Tide coach Nate Oats to X on Saturday, saying, “We are good! He’s not going anywhere!”
Those are two of the prominent names listed by Sports Illustrated’s Kevin Sweeney in his list of candidates for the North Carolina job.
McCollum may be a bit further down any Tar Heels wishlist, but he too did his best to distance himself from any other openings while his Hawkeyes were still in action ahead of Sunday’s loss.
Of course, he made similar statements last year while at Drake, before ultimately jumping to Iowa.
“As far as the rumors, I've already taken eight jobs already, so I'm sure, you know, it is what it is,” he said around this time last year, per ESPN. “But it floats around every year and that’s what it is. It comes with success. That's what happens with success. It’s just one of those things that's tough, but it is what it is.”
Other top coaching jobs could still open
North Carolina may not be the only blueblood with an opening this offseason. Kansas coach Bill Self has not yet made a decision on whether to retire, as he works through health issues that have pulled him away from the sideline in recent years. If he does, assistant Jacque Vaughn, a former NBA head coach, could step into the role, though that is no guarantee.
The Jayhawks would also be in position to go after top sitting coaches, should Self step away and the program opt to go outside of his staff to replace him. However, McCollum could be climbing that list quickly as well, with his unquestioned level of success at the D-II level combined with a red-hot start as a D-I coach.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ‘Those Are All Lies’: Ben McCollum Calls Out Rumors He’ll Leave Iowa After Elite Eight Run in First Year.
