CORALVILLE - Iowa fans were happy when Tuesday night rolled around because they could take their mind off the never-ending carousel of questions the Hawkeye football team has brought over the last few days with some October hoops. 

Ben McCollum and the Iowa men's basketball team opened their 2026-27 campaign with an 88-64 triumph over Illinois Springfield in an exhibition contest at Xtream Arena. 

Exhibitions always bring out overreactions from fans, so why not do it from a professional perspective here on HawkeyeRoundtable.com? Here are some of our overreactions from Tuesday's exhibition win.

Trey Thompson not seeing any action until late in the game is interesting: We've heard how Trey Thompson can play a bigger role for this team all summer long, but it surprised some of us on press row to see him be one of the final men off the bench at the end of this game (Ethan Harris and walk-on Jacob Koch were the other guys that came in late). Again, this is only an exhibition game, but Thompson is a former four-star prospect that reclassified to the Class of 2025 to play for the Hawkeyes last year. Thompson didn't register a single second of game action last season after taking a redshirt year, so it's a little interesting that McCollum didn't throw him on the floor in an exhibition game. We'll see if that changes in the season opener next Tuesday, but this was certainly something to monitor. 

Could Peyton McCollum be a Sam Hoiberg-type player?: This is definitely an overreaction considering Ben McCollum's son never played last year, but he looked like he belonged on the floor in this one. Peyton will have to make triples and hustle plays to earn playing time, and he did both against UIS. An early comparison from Hawkeye fans on X is former Nebraska player Sam Hoiberg. Hoiberg, the son of Nebraska head coach Sam Hoiberg, was usually the smallest guy on the floor, but it was the little things he did that made the Cornhuskers a really tough team to beat. We'll see how McCollum uses his son in the rotation once the season kicks off. 

Out-rebounded at halftime is concerning: Iowa was supposed to be a better team on the glass this year, but the defensive rebounding was certainly pedestrian. The Hawkeyes were out-rebounded at halftime by a Division II team, and the Prairie Stars ended up with 12 offensive rebounds. McCollum was clearly frustrated with this postgame, but it definitely wasn't a great sign in this exhibition game. 

Free throw shooting was bad: Iowa was the fifth-best free throw shooting team in the Big Ten last year (77%), but it struggled on this night. The Hawkeyes went 22-for-34 from the charity stripe - good for a measly 64% clip. Peyton McCollum and Kael Combs were the only Iowa players to go perfect from the free throw line, but again, it's just an exhibition. 

Iowa will open its 2026-27 regular season next Tuesday, Nov. 3 with a matchup against Lipscomb at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. Tip off is set for 7 p.m. local time on Big Ten Network.