IOWA CITY — When Iowa and Ben McCollum agreed to make him the school’s next men’s basketball coach, just a few scholarship players remained on the Hawkeyes’ roster.

Four to be exact, as of Monday morning. Carter Kingsbury, Seydou Traore, Isaiah Johson-Arigu and Chris Tadjo.

McCollum, the former Northwest Missouri State and Drake head coach, is replacing Fran McCaffery as the leader of the Hawkeyes program. The development comes shortly after McCollum’s Drake Bulldogs were bounced from the NCAA Tournament on Saturday.

McCollum takes the reins of an Iowa roster that has mostly dwindled. It’s difficult to blame Iowa players for examining their options when there literally wasn’t a head coach in place.

As John Calipari quipped after taking the Arkansas job in 2024, “I met with the team, there is no team.”

Iowa isn’t quite in that territory. But McCollum does have a significant amount of work ahead of him to get Iowa’s roster intact for the 2025-26 season. 

Iowa is tasked with reconstructing the roster in a way that the program hasn’t been accustomed to. It will likely be much more reliant on the transfer portal — whether that be via Drake, re-recruiting Iowa players, or adding firepower from elsewhere.

Iowa’s philosophy under McCaffery was pretty clear. The Hawkeyes would build the foundation of the program through the high school ranks and filled holes through the transfer portal when needed.

Here’s a look at Iowa’s (scholarship) transfer portal additions in recent years:

• One ahead of the 2021-22 season (Filip Rebraca)
• Two ahead of the 2023-24 season (Ben Krikke and Even Brauns)
• Two ahead of the 2024-25 seasons (Drew Thelwell and Traore)
• One during the 2024-25 season (Johnson-Arigu)

In the modern landscape of roster movement, Iowa was able to maintain a fairly high level of roster stability. The Hawkeyes have no choice but to take a different approach now. 

Before any additional departures, the Hawkeyes were already set to lose a few players who had exhausted their college eligibility. That trio came in the form of Payton Sandfort, Thelwell and Brauns, all of whom played roles on Iowa’s 2024-25 team to varying degrees.

As of Monday morning, seven Iowa players had decided to enter the transfer portal since the departure of McCaffery — Owen Freeman, Brock Harding, Pryce Sandfort, Riley Mulvey, Josh Dix, Cooper Koch and Ladji Dembele.

Sandfort, Koch and Dembele have publicly left the door open for a return to Iowa.

Joshua Lewis and Dezmon Briscoe, two members of Iowa’s 2025 high school class, have re-opened their recruitments. Lewis was one of the top high school prospects to commit to the program in the modern recruiting era.

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Iowa had seen roster turnover under McCaffery. But not to this degree. This is a new dilemma for the program, which was able to navigate the uncertain waters of an evolving landscape with the stability of a long-tenured head coach.

That changes now. 

Hawkeye fans can find some solace in the fact that McCollum has been in a very similar situation. Roughly one year ago, in fact.

This is uncharted waters for the Iowa program, yes. But not for McCollum.

McCollum took over at Drake in 2024 and revamped the Bulldogs’ roster. More than half of the players on Drake’s 2024-25 squad (active or not) started their college careers at a different school. McCollum brought some from his previous home at Northwest Missouri State, including star Bennett Stirtz (who has a year of eligibility remaining). McCollum also landed transfers from Wyoming, Indiana State and Northwest Florida State College.

McCollum showed he could make that formula work. The Bulldogs finished the season 31-4 and were one of college basketball’s feel-good stories after making it one step short of the Sweet 16. Drake went 4-1 against power conference programs — with the lone loss coming to Texas Tech on Saturday.

“It’s a lot of work to get it to this point,” McCollum said after Drake’s loss to Texas Tech in the NCAA Tournament Round of 32. “It’s a lot of sleepless nights. Lot of phone conversations trying to get players. And then trying to get guys to buy into something. Just have a level of blind faith. It’s hard.”

There could be at least some level of familiarity for those who choose to join the Hawkeyes’ 2025-26 roster. Whether that be with McCollum as a head coach or the University of Iowa. But as a unit, it won’t be the same level of continuity that the program has experienced in the recent past.

At least for one season, Iowa’s roster-building process will likely be more reflective of the modern times.

Follow Tyler Tachman on X @Tyler_T15, contact via email at ttachman@gannett.com