IOWA CITY — The inaugural seasons of Ben McCollum's first two head coaching stops looked drastically different.

In his first campaign leading Northwest Missouri State, the Bearcats finished just 12–15 overall. Compare that to his first season as Drake’s head coach, where the Bulldogs were a stunningly successful 31-4.

The latter doesn’t set a reasonable precedent for how Iowa could fare in McCollum’s first season as the Iowa men’s basketball coach. Drake won the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament titles and could count its losses on just one hand.

But the Big Ten is a different animal. McCollum very much understands that.

“I think that there's a natural expectation that you're just going to go win the Big Ten and it's just going to show up because that's what we

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