The first test of Iowa men's basketball's 2026-27 campaign was handed out on Tuesday evening, but the Hawkeyes failed to pass it, falling in a 93-88 thriller to Virginia Tech in Sioux City, Iowa. 

Here are three things we saw from the contest that Iowa should continue doing the rest of the season (the do's) and three things that should remain in Northwest Iowa (the don'ts): 

Win the rebounding battle: Iowa didn't do a lot of things well on the defensive end of the floor, but something it did well in this one was win the rebounding battle. If you watched the Hawkeyes last season, you know that was a very rare sentence to type. While 7-foot-3 center Andrew McKeever saw the court for the first time in 2027 on Tuesday (10 minutes), he wasn't the one that helped Iowa hold a very good 40-26 advantage on the glass. 

That title belongs to Isaia Howard. We've heard all summer long that Howard will be the most improved player on this team and there was nothing to believe that he can't be that guy this season. The 6-foot-5 guard tallied a team-high 15 rebounds to become the the only Hawkeye with even double-digit boards. The scoring punch was there as well (he netted his first-career double-double) but that's a really good development for this Iowa team right now.

Virginia Tech doesn't have a very big lineup, so that definitely helped the Hawkeyes have the edge here, but considering how poor Iowa was at rebounding the basketball last season, it's a good early sign. 

Get Ty'Reek Coleman going: Ty'Reek Coleman always had a lot of potential in Ben McCollum's offense because of his ridiculous athleticism, but few people probably didn't expect him to have such a complete game in game three with the Hawkeyes. The Illinois State transfer was absolutely fantastic in this one, netting 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting.

The box score looks great, but if you go beyond that, you'll see a very poised player. Iowa struggled to orchestrate good offense early in the game, but all of that changed when Coleman came into the game because he was beating Virginia Tech at the rim with his speed. That was probably what kept Iowa in this game in the first place, and his +10 plus-minus certainly showed that. 

His missed free throw that could've won the game in regulation will certainly sting, but the most head-scratching move of the night was the fact that Coleman was removed from the game at the 11:23 mark of the second half and wasn't inserted back into the game at the 3:52 mark. Coleman's replacement was Peyton McCollum, who didn't have a major impact on the game and yielded some easy buckets inside. Coleman did look to tweak his ankle in the second half so that could be the reason, but it was certainly an interesting situation. 

Coleman has been coming off the bench, but it might not be a stretch to say he should be starting 

Cooper Koch using his size to score: We touched on this in our instant takeaways from the game, but now that we've had a chance to go back and look at some of the tape, Cooper Koch's ability to score down low is really the most positive aspect to come out of his game at this point. He can certainly knock them down from beyond the arc (just 1/5 on Tuesday, though), but Koch didn't need to because he was so efficient inside. Koch finished with a team-high 26 points (also a career-high) and seven rebounds. That interior presence will make him a dangerous threat moving forward. 

Miss 16 free throws: There were plenty of factors that led to Iowa's demise, but free throws again reared their ugly head on Tuesday. It was a recurring issue across the Hawkeyes' first two wins to open the year, but it becomes a major problem when it happens against a Power Five opponent. Iowa went just 31-for-47 from the charity stripe in this one, and that's not going to cut it the rest of the way. If you include the exhibition game against Illinois-Springfield, the Hawkeyes are just 78-for-126 (62%) from the foul line this year. Yikes. 

Struggle to switch on ball screens: McCollum wasn't happy with Iowa's defense in his postgame press conference, and he has a good reason to be upset. The Hawkeyes really struggled on the defensive end of the floor, specifically against Virginia Tech's athletic guards. Iowa wasn't getting the proper switches on ball screens during certain stretches of the game, and it led to the Hokies feasting on easy buckets inside the arc. Virginia Tech struggled from distance (7/18), but that didn't matter because it shot 30-for-56 (53%) on two-point attempts – good enough for a 53.6% game shooting clip from the field. 

Shoot 29% from beyond the arc: Iowa has the perimeter shooting to win games like these, but it just didn't connect on this night. The Hawkeyes went 5-for-17 from downtown, with Howard being the only Iowa player to connect on more than one triple. This is a minor concern, but something the Hawkeyes would love to correct before they play Creighton in Des Moines on Sunday afternoon.