Radio: Huskies Gameday App, Sports Radio KJR
Location: Seattle, Washington
Betting Line: Washington Huskies +1.5
Iowa Hawkeyes 2025-26 Statistics:
Points For per Game: 78.0 (113th)
Points Against per Game: 63.0 (3rd)
Adjusted Offensive Efficiency: 122.3 (28th)
Adjusted Defensive Efficiency: 97.2(18th)
Strength of Schedule: 74th
G- Bennett Stirtz, Sr. 6’4, 190: 19.0 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 5.0 apg, 49.4% FG, 38.7% 3pt, 84.3% FT
Evanmiya.com Stats: +9.22 (15th overall)
Stirtz is the ultimate avatar for head coach Ben McCollum having followed him from D-2 to Drake last year to Iowa this season. Stirtz led the country in minutes played last year and has put almost identical numbers transitioning to the Big Ten. His totals would be even higher except Iowa plays at one of the slowest paces in the country with Stirtz milking every second necessary to get the team the best shot possible. He’s coming off a career high 32-point game against Oregon with 7 assists and 0 turnovers. In Iowa’s wins he averages 20.3 pts, 61/44/90% shooting and a 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. In Iowa’s losses he averages 15.2 pts, 48/28/64% shooting and a 1.4-to-1 A-to-T ratio. If UW slows him down, they win the game.
G- Kael Combs, Jr. 6’4, 205: 6.2 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 2.7 apg, 50.0% FG, 39.3% 3pt, 86.2% FT
Evanmiya.com Stats: +2.16 (867th overall)
Combs is also in his 3rd stop in 3 years after going from Wyoming to Drake to Iowa. He came off the bench for Drake last season and has been a breakout starter more than doubling his playing time. Combs is generally content to be a pass-first secondary ball handler with the lowest % of shots taken of anyone in the rotation. When he does shoot it, Combs has been an above average shooter but still prefers to take the ball to the hoop.
F- Tavion Banks, Sr. 6’7, 215: 10.8 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 1.2 apg, 53.8% FG, 52.0% 3pt, 80.8% FT
Evanmiya.com Stats: +5.61 (156th overall)
Banks like Stirtz also followed McCollum from D2 to Drake to Iowa. He somehow went from shooting 2/22 from deep last year (9.1%) to 13/25 so far this year (52.0%). Ridiculous. Banks is Iowa’s second leading scorer and has been an exceptional rebounder and a menace on the defensive end. The good news for Washington is that he appears to be banged up with an undisclosed injury. Ben McCollum said it likely wouldn’t keep him completely out but he played a season-low 11 minutes against Oregon and only had 4 points on 2/7 shooting. It’s a big win for Washington if he isn’t 100%.
F- Cooper Koch, Fr, 6’8, 220: 6.9 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 1.0 apg, 47.2% FG, 39.1% 3pt, 75.0% FT
Evanmiya.com Stats: +2.53 (744th overall)
Koch redshirted last season for Iowa but showed off potential with great shooting splits in his limited opportunities earlier in the year. He has had a major breakout as a stretch 4 sniper making nearly 40% from deep. The defensive numbers are questionable and he rebounds more like a 6’4 shooting guard so Hannes Steinbach should have a fantastic matchup here when UW has the ball.
C- Alvaro Folgueiras, Jr. 6’10, 230: 8.5 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 2.0 apg, 52.5% FG, 39.1% 3pt, 69.2% FT
Evanmiya.com Stats: +6.87 (81st overall)
It was a toss-up whether to go with Robert Morris transfer Folgueiras here or Cam Manyawu who have close to a 50/50 split at center for Iowa. Manyawu starts but Folgeiras has played more minutes as a hyper-efficient stretch 5. Alvaro has made nearly 40% on his 3-pointers and 68% from inside the arc. He’s not a great shot blocker or offensive rebounder but has been really good on the defensive glass. It’s Folgueiras’ playmaking that sets him apart though with an assist rate that you normally would see from a backup point guard.
This is where I give props to the member of the UWDP chat who when Washington fired Mike Hopkins was suggesting the Huskies hire then D2 coach Ben McCollum at Northwest Missouri State. There was no history of someone going straight from D2 to a power conference school even if they were a 4-time national champion at that level. Instead, he was hired by Drake and instantly propelled them to a 31-4 record and first round NCAA tournament win. That was all it took for the power conference schools to take notice and he ended up at Iowa.
There were legitimate concerns about whether McCollum’s style at Drake would translate to the Big Ten. The Bulldogs played at the slowest pace in the country last year and relied on PG Bennett Stirtz milking every second off the shot clock to limit possessions and still get the best shot possible. That is the ultimate strategy for keeping things close against teams with more raw talent but would it work against the juggernauts in the B1G?
The results have been a little mixed. You could note that Iowa is 16-1 against teams outside the top-10 at KenPom. That seems pretty damn good. Four of their five losses came against truly elite opponents with all but one of those on the road (home to Illinois by 6 points). Their only slip up against slightly worse teams was on the road at Minnesota by 3 points. You could also note though that Iowa has beaten just 2 teams ranked better than 50th at KenPom and just one of those was on the road. Iowa is still relatively unproven against roughly bubble quality teams on the road like Washington.
It’s hard to do my typical key players section for a team like Iowa. Stirtz is the mainstay and plays almost every minute in close games. But other than that, Iowa rotates heavily and has 7 players averaging between 17 and 27 minutes per game. Washington by contrast only has four despite injuries leading to some wonky minutes per game totals. This is a deep team that plays a “by committee” style except for Stirtz leading the show.
The offense is maybe not quite what you’d expect for a modern master coach like McCollum. The Hawkeyes are roughly average in the number of 3-pointers they take per game and they are well above average in team assist rate but not top 10 in the country. The one thing Iowa can do is shoot the ball from every level of the court. They are 9th nationally in 2-point%, 29th in 3-point%, and 24th in FT%. If Iowa gets a shot off then it’s got a pretty good shot of going in no matter who shot it.
It’s the athletic disadvantage they generally face in the Big Ten that shows up in every other part of the offense. They struggle to get rebounds, are only a little above average in avoiding turnovers, and don’t get to the free throw line all that often. In Big Ten play they rank 14th, 12th, and 16th in those categories respectively. If Iowa has an off-night shooting the ball then they probably aren’t going to generate extra possession on offense to cancel that out.
Where Iowa gets the possession edge comes on defense where they’re 7th in turnover rate on that end of the floor. The Hawkeyes will harass opposing ball handlers and jump passing lanes to get the ball back to their hyper-efficient offense as often as possible and it has resulted in the 4th best defense in conference play so far. There are of course trade-offs to this approach. Iowa is last in free throw rate on defense so they’ll definitely send opponents to the charity stripe but wager than the extra offensive possessions are worth even more.
The ball pressure that Iowa puts on opposing guards has also helped them defend on the perimeter. Conference opponents are shooting just 28.9% from deep against them so far which is the best mark in the league. If there were ever a game for Washington to not settle for three-point shots and instead force the ball inside to Hannes Steinbach and Franck Kepnang, it seems like this would be it. Of course there are plenty of times when Washington still forces up long-range shots despite it very much not being the strength of the team.
There’s a good chance that the outcome of this game comes down to how many minutes Franck Kepnang plays. Iowa’s front line should get overwhelmed by the big man duo of Steinbach and Kepnang. Both of their centers are good rebounders but Iowa almost never plays them next to each other. Starting power forward Cooper Koch plays smaller than his 6’8 height and starting small forward Tavion Banks makes up for it with his rebounding but is playing through an injury that limited him on Sunday night. Ben McCollum will call it a win if they’re able to stretch the floor and make Sprinkle think that the double-big lineup’s rebounding edge isn’t worth the trade-off of having Kepnang and/or Steinbach chase Iowa’s stretch forwards on the perimeter.
This is a very good Iowa team. The metrics back that up. They won their last two conference road games by 17+ points. But in between that they barely escaped USC at home and had just a 6-point win over an awful Rutgers team. If Washington were to pull this off, it would be their best win of the season by a sizeable margin. There would still be a path to an at-large bid for the Huskies even with a loss here but it would cut out basically any margin for error.
And I actually like this matchup okay. There’s of course a chance that Iowa just shoots 44% from 3-point range compared to Washington’s 21% and the Huskies turn the ball over 18 times on the way to a double-digit loss. But if the Dawgs execute the gameplan and keep driving the ball inside without making lazy passes to get into the paint then the rebounding edge they have could carry the day. I think this UW team is finally starting to gel with Wesley Yates III looking more like the shooter we expected over the last 3 games and Zoom Diallo officially being given the car keys. I’ll go with the Dawgs in a close one that’ll get fans officially checking the weekly Bubble Watch columns.
Washington Huskies– 72, Iowa Hawkeyes- 69
Season picks: 16-6 straight up, 11-11 against the spread
