Ben McCollum Voices Concern With Iowa Men's Basketball's Defense

Ben McCollum isn't afraid to tell the local press what's on his mind when he sees fit, and Thursday was one of those moments. 

It's been two days since McCollum's Iowa men's basketball team suffered a 93-88 loss to Virginia Tech in Sioux City on Nov. 10, and though it's only November, the coach is already concerned with his defense. 

Intense defense has always been a hallmark of McCollum's wildly-successful coaching career, but what he saw on Tuesday was the exact opposite of that. His Hawkeyes allowed the Hokies to shoot over 50% from the floor and make a living inside the arc (30/56 on two-point attempts), leading to Iowa's subsequent defeat. 

McCollum didn't shy away from expressing disappointment with the defensive effort in his postgame press conference after the loss, and the same sentiment remains as he tries to rally his team for another very important non-conference tilt against Creighton in Des Moines on Sunday. 

"I got a lot of concerns on our defense. To be perfectly honest, I thought what I thought after the game was was accurate. I thought that we played with a lot of we don't want to get beat mentality. I thought we played with a lot of that rather than an attacking mentality defensively," McCollum said during a Zoom press conference on Nov. 12. 

McCollum then explained his "we don't want to get beat mentality" in simple terms. He says that he feels his team was too passive in certain junctures of the game, especially early in the contest when Virginia Tech beat Iowa down the floor for a pair of easy layups after missed Hawkeye free throws. 

McCollum said the outcome may have been different had the Hawkeyes not allowed the Hokies to tally 4-6 easy points, but the primary focal point of his frustration was targeted towards his ball screen defense. 

A frequent saying from McCollum and his players is "death by 1,000 paper cuts," which means a loss is attributed to a series of mistakes during across the game. The root of Tuesday's loss was developed through the poor ball screen defense, but McCollum does have a different perspective than the normal person that watched this game probably has. 

Most of the criticism from Iowa fans was directed towards the guards for consistently getting beat at the rim, but McCollum says that wasn't the case. The real problem against Virginia Tech according to McCollum was his bigs (Drew McKeever, Trevin Jirak) leaving their guards on an island. 

McCollum used Hokies star Amani Hansberry as his example to describe this. The 6-foot-8 transfer from West Virginia was on point in this one, recording 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting. McCollum gave Hansberry plenty of credit for credit for carving up Iowa's defense, with Hansberry making the Hawkeyes bigs "indecisive" when trying to defend Hansberry. 

Hansberry and Virginia Tech utilized the pick-and-pop to their advantage throughout this one, and that's where Iowa's bigs were confused. McCollum says his team was fearful of those pick-and-pops after Hansberry developed that shot early in the game, but the fear resulted in the bigs panicking a little bit. 

That sudden indecisiveness leaves the big standing in midair and almost running into the guard that is trying to fight around the screen, creating a direct gap that leads to an easy look at the rim. 

"When he [the guard] gets refused, that big's got to be there because we can't put coverages behind the ball," McCollum said. "You're losing to the busted ball screen coverage. You're losing to this. You're not losing to just somebody being a little bit better." 

Though McCollum gave an in-depth explanation about something his players need to execute better, he says that he himself needs to do a better job of coaching his players up in practice to defend these screens better. 

All of that hard work in practice over the next few days will have a chance to respond against Creighton on Sunday afternoon. It will be Iowa's second consecutive season playing a game in the capital city (Des Moines). 

Tipoff from the Casey's Center is set for 2 p.m. on FS1.