IOWA CITY — For the third consecutive game, Mr. Forty Minutes — Iowa basketball’s Bennett Stirtz — found himself in foul trouble.

The Hawkeye senior thought he drew a charge, but officials called him for a block with 11 minutes, 36 seconds to go against No. 16 Illinois. And so, with four fouls, Iowa basketball coach Ben McCollum brought his star point guard to the bench with his team down 14 points.

After a quick 3, Illinois’ lead was up to 58-41. Not a thing was going right for Iowa.

But instead of wilting, Stirtz’s absence actually gave Iowa a lift.

Not because Iowa is a better team without its star. But because his supporting cast stopped looking for Stirtz to save Iowa — and looked for one another.

That, above all other things, should be the takeaway from what became No. 19 Iowa’s 75-69 loss to No. 16 Illinois on Jan. 11.

With Stirtz out, the 13,559 fans at Carver-Hawkeye Arena continued to match Iowa’s newfound energy. Tavion Banks soared through the air for a dunk to cut Illinois’ lead to 62-55. Tate Sage delivered a back-door cut and dunk to make it 62-57.

Stirtz waved his arms into the air from the Iowa bench as the noise came to a crescendo.

“We changed from playing with fear to fighting,” Stirtz would say afterward. “I’m proud of the guys for that.”

The Hawkeyes fell to 12-4 overall, 2-3 in the Big Ten Conference with a daunting trip to No. 5 Purdue (15-1, 5-0) on Jan. 14. This was their first home loss and first two-game losing streak of the McCollum era. A quick 21-5 deficit made this an uphill climb throughout.

“You’ve got to come ready,” McCollum said. “Not today.”

Video: Ben McCollum reacts to Iowa basketball’s loss to Illinois

Ben McCollum meets with media after Iowa basketball’s 75-69 loss to Illinois.

And that’s two straight games in which Iowa was completely flat at the beginning — and then played better without Stirtz for a stretch. The same thing happened in the first half at Minnesota, too, where Stirtz got two fouls and his teammates started playing better and even took the lead.

Sage scored six points in the Stirtz-less run against Illinois; Cooper Koch had eight, including two 3-pointers. What woke up Iowa?

“Cutting,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. “I thought Sage was tremendous in his cutting.”

In the 7:05 that Stirtz missed on Sunday, the Hawkeyes officially outscored Illinois (13-3, 4-1) by an 18-10 margin. He returned with Iowa down, 65-59, and 4:31 left.

“No, he’s not the problem,” McCollum said, answering a question about what fans might be thinking. “It’s that the floor shrinks when he comes off screens, and we’re not doing a good job of getting to the secondary actions after that.”

Let’s pause here for a little extra explanation.

In other words, in McCollum’s eyes, when Stirtz is drawing so much attention, his four teammates on the floor need to make opponents pay.

Stirtz did have six assists to go with this 12 points against Illinois, but he shot 5-for-17 from the floor, with a lot of those misses being forced attempts — especially late.

Iowa needs to be able to win without Stirtz being at his absolute best. And he certainly wasn’t his best Sunday. Stirtz missed a wide-open layup with 37 seconds that could’ve cut the gap to 71-69.

“Sometimes when you have a player of his caliber, you search for him a little bit too much, and it doesn’t naturally flow,” McCollum said. “And I think we probably searched for him too much, and then when you search for him, then all five guys shrink.”

McCollum elaborated by describing how Illinois puts five elite players on the floor, complimenting how they each make one another better at what they do.

“Those guys benefit from each other, if that makes sense, and so we’re not benefiting from each other,” McCollum said. “… Leverage each other, not just leverage one person. And that’s partly me, too, I’ve got to do a better job of, ‘OK, why is that not working?’ We will. We’re getting there.”

Advertisement

Stirtz was sick earlier this week at Minnesota, when he went scoreless in the first half but put up 21 points in the second in a 70-67 loss.

He is taking a lot on his shoulders right now, and defenses are giving him that kind of attention, too.

“They were throwing everyone at me,” Stirtz said.

Opponents know what they need to do to stop Iowa right now: Throw the kitchen sink at Stirtz.

“He’s really good,” Underwood said. “You’re not going to take everything away from him. More importantly, it’s making him guard the other end and making him work (on defense). Matchup-hunting was good for us, in this one.”

Advertisement

There you go, Ben McCollum and Hawkeye fans. Underwood gave you the general script on how to suffocate Iowa. Make Stirtz work hard on both ends of the floor, and maybe he’ll reach here and there on defense and get into foul trouble.

Minnesota capitalized on it. So did Illinois. It’s time for Iowa to adjust.

Now, this was a really good Illinois team. This was hardly an embarrassing Iowa loss.

But, as McCollum voiced in the 66-62 loss at Iowa State a month ago, he isn’t interested in moral victories like two straight comebacks that barely fell short.

Advertisement

Video: Cooper Koch on why Iowa got off to slow start vs. Illinois

Cooper Koch meets with media after Iowa basketball’s 75-69 loss to Illinois.

The crystalized lesson that the Hawkeyes must take from this loss is to take what they did without Stirtz … and play like that with Stirtz.

Then, this team can be really good, an NCAA Tournament team and maybe a threat to make a run.

Until they figure that out, frustrating losses will continue to add up. The Big Ten is relentless. After the Purdue trip comes a Jan. 17 visit to Indiana. Iowa could be 2-5 in conference play in just six days if it doesn’t pull off an upset.

McCollum did tweak his second-half lineup, looking for a spark. Starting center Cam Manyawu didn’t play a minute after halftime. Sage, a freshman, played all 20 second-half minutes.

Advertisement

Getting Banks back to full health will help. McCollum said the forward (who was Iowa’s best player against Illinois with 14 points, seven rebounds and five assists) lost 8-10 pounds over the past few days with an illness. Banks was replaced by Alvaro Folgueiras (eight points, eight rebounds) in the starting lineup.

Iowa is only 25% of the way through the conference season. But it needs to learn these lessons quickly and not let them linger, like they did in both games this past week.

“We’ve got to change something, because something’s not working,” Stirtz said. “It’s been a couple games where we haven’t started out with a lot of energy. It’s definitely going to need to change, and we’re going to need to it for the full 40.”

Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has served for 31 years with The Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Sports Network. Chad is the 2023 INA Iowa Sports Columnist of the Year and NSMA Co-Sportswriter of the Year in Iowa. Join Chad’s text-message group at HawkCentral.com/HawkeyesTexts. Follow @ChadLeistikow on X.