Saturday inside Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall, Indiana and Iowa will face off in the first of (hopefully) many editions of “The Drake Bowl”. “The Drake Bowl” features former Drake University head coaches, Indiana’s Darian DeVries and Iowa’s Ben McCollum.
The two coaches are both off to decent starts in their first campaign at their new schools, both having reached the AP Top 25. However, neither Indiana or Iowa have a Quad 1 win this season. This is a prime opportunity for both teams to grab one, especially Indiana.
It’s not just the coaching paths that make these teams alike, their philosophies and both seasons have pretty much been the same. These two teams want to play the same game: lob 3-pointers and play good defense. It’s safe to say that philosophy has worked for McCollum all throughout his college coaching career, boasting a record of 437-100. Iowa has the make up of a good team but similar to Indiana, are winless in true road games (0-4). The most recent loss was a wire to wire competitive matchup for all 40 minutes with Purdue at Mackey.
Hawkeye personnel
The last three winners of Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year are playing in this game. The 2025 winner, Bennett Stirtz, is having a tremendous start to his new life in the Big Ten after following his coach from Drake. He is averaging a team high in both points and assists with 17 and five. Stirtz is arguably a top three point guard in the conference, trailing Purdue’s Braden Smith and Jeremy Fears Jr. of Michigan State.
Stirtz can make you pay on every square foot of the floor, shooting the long ball at 38% and total field goals at 48%. Plus the aforementioned five assists per game.
But similar to what Indiana struggles with, one guy cannot win a road game in the Big Ten. Who is Stirtz feeding those assists to?
Tavion Banks and Kael Combs, who both also came with McCollum from Drake are the two main threats outside of Stirtz that help account for the Big Ten’s second-ranked 3-point field goal percentage at 37.7%. Banks shoots 52% and Combs at 42% from beyond-the-arc.
Down low Iowa starts 6-foot-9 Cam Manyawu and 6-foot-10 Alvaro Folgueiras comes off the bench. The two average 7.6 and 8.9 points per game, fourth and third, respectively, on the team. Folgueiras also shoots 41% from deep.
Here is where the game will be determined: Iowa is third in the conference in field goal percentage at just over 51%, but in conference road games Iowa shot 53% in the close 79-72 loss to Purdue, 40% in the 70-67 road loss to Minnesota and 38% in the 71-52 road loss to Michigan State. (It also outshot Iowa State at Hilton Coliseum for what it's worth but also was a loss, 66-62). The Hawkeyes have gotten better and better at shooting on the road as the season has gone on, but giving points away at the free-throw line has decided all of Iowa’s three conference losses and the additional non-conference loss to the Cyclones.
Purdue got 19 makes at the charity stripe, Minnesota got 21 makes and Michigan State made 22 free throws. Iowa had no more than 11 in either of those performances.
If Iowa keeps the game clean, it will have a chance to beat Indiana.
If you are the Hoosiers, you just read your game plan: Get Iowa into foul trouble, especially Stirtz and the big men. If Iowa’s big men are having foul trouble, Reed Bailey and Sam Alexis can find ways to go to work down low as Bailey has the height advantage on both Manyawu and Folgueiras, and Alexis has a level of physicality that would outmatch Iowa.
Indiana needs a strong start from its main scorers. Lamar Wilkerson has been great seemingly every minute he has played this season whether that’s making shots or spacing the floor just by being on it, but the main key to victory is the other recipient of the aforementioned MVC player of the year, 2023 and 2024 winner, of course at Drake, Tucker DeVries.
DeVries has started slow in almost every game since the turn of the new year for Indiana and has been in foul trouble in the middle 16 minutes of each game quite often in that same time period. If IU can get DeVries going early, there will be a cushion throughout the game that it did not have against Michigan State or Nebraska.
The Hoosiers have to expect Iowa to knock down shots. The consistency is in the box scores of the Big Ten road games it has played, but Indiana is a much better team at home.
The Hoosiers and Hawkeyes will tip at 2 p.m. on Saturday.
