Video: Ben McCollum provides summer update on Iowa men's basketball

Yeah, I hit the big time. Let's do it. What do we got? Who do we got first? I was interested in looking at Trevor Urich and how he's transformed his body and it seems like his game has really matched that. What's his offseason been like and how has he progressed? I mean, he started when he got here last year. It just takes a little time to kind of change your body. He went on a diet over the summer. He just works. He's been in the weight room. He's been conditioning. He's been in the gym. He's already had the skill set and now he's moving at a high level. I think him doing it on his own and obviously our strength coach Logan really helped him out. Luke works with him a lot in regards to just some of the other stuff offensively. He's had a great summer. How different has this summer been? Same faces for most of this team, but you've been through the big time. What's expected now? Yeah, I mean, personally, I didn't lose anything, so that's nice. I actually feel like I've got my feet underneath me. I've got a better grip on what we need to do. We're still trying to figure out what we need offensively, what we need to do defensively. We're playing so much right now that we really haven't been doing a lot of stuff. A couple of the guys last week mentioned that you didn't wait very long after the lead 8 loss to text them and be like, How long did you take before you switched gears to this year? Oh yeah, I just switched right away. It doesn't matter if you win a national title or not. You just switch to the next. It's all about the process of getting better and creating that culture. If you stop doing that, eventually you won't have the success that you want. You got the addition of McKeever. Are you looking at doing two big lineups? Maybe the growth of Trevon King? Yeah, they played together today. They look pretty good. Trevor can shoot it, so that helps. It depends on which one can guard the guard. That'll be the issue, so we'll see. A lot of programs are making a lead 8 run. Sometimes they can plateau, but talking to them last week was interesting. They almost seemed more angry and determined because they finished 9th in the Big 10 last year. They brought that up a few times, and they want to get farther. How do you compartmentalize the momentum that you guys built last year? I also understand there's so much more room to grow, especially consistency throughout the year. For me, momentum is defined as, do we have good practices? Do we break off our teammates? All those different things. Whether or not you win is kind of irrelevant to me. Obviously, I love competition. I love to win. We're so process-focused. We felt like our process was good. It needs to continue, and so there shouldn't need to be external hunger now. The 18- to 22-year-olds, they probably need some external hunger, so we can paint the picture of, but in reality, we didn't reach the goals that we wanted to reach. I'm not a big goal guy. I'm just process, process. How much of the 10 returners that came, how much would have your expectations shifted for them? I mean, expectations for me is just, can we have a good practice? And I guess the shift for me is, can we get us, like, even get more effort? That would be the expectation. Whether it be a success or knock their out or whatever may happen, that's a good end result if it opens the door. So we're going to focus on just how intense we can get. What are the biggest things you've learned, whether that be individualist standouts, lineups, concepts, like the biggest things you've learned about this group so far this summer? Yeah, I mean, we've got more shooting and we've got more length. I think that I feel pretty good for about 35 minutes of the game right now. I'm still trying to find that last five minutes, you know, and that's a big deal. That's what Bennett, he does Bennett. That's a big deal, that last five minutes controlling the game and being able to finish it. But I like our length, I like our shooting, I like our energy, I like our attitudes. How would you evaluate Cooper this summer? He's been really good. He got banged up a little bit for a week there, but he's back pretty well today. What have you seen for Tyree Coleman so far this summer? Defensively, he's been awesome, you know, good length on the ball, twitchy. He's getting used to the rough world, he's doing a great job with that. Our guys love him, great attitude, all those things. Let's kind of go back to Cooper quick. It seems like defensively, he was, I want to say he was never timid last year, but he was a lot more confident in his movement. He really battled on the boards and he bullied his way to the basket a few times. I mean, how much of those little details and going through the work in the summer has kind of cultivated his growth on that end of the floor? I mean, he's got more confidence because of his workload. Last year, it was just like a shock to his system. He got halfway through the year, he figured it out. This year, he knows what to expect. And now he's driving, he's driving our culture forward. Like he is, he's not winning sprints, he's in the top two or three. We're in the stairs, he's in the top two or three. And on the lake, we're much better than on the floor. His energy's there. So he's driving things forward, which is a big deal. Whereas last year, he might have just allowed people to come along. That's a big deal. I know a couple months ago, you mentioned that when it came to scheduling, you mentioned it's kind of difficult to get teams to come to Carver. We've seen some of the non-conference games, a couple out in Des Moines and Western Iowa. I guess, why isn't maybe one of those games in Carver? Why are so many of them in Des Moines and Western Iowa? Because they're good opponents, right? Yeah. I mean, I'd love to have them in Carver. But people don't want to do Open Olympics anymore, for the most part. It's hard to schedule. So my thought was this, I can go to an MTE in California, an MTE in Hawaii, an MTE in Bahamas, which would be probably more fun for me, or in my family, or I can do it in the state of Iowa. The exact MTE that we would do somewhere else, our fans get to come watch it. They watch it, they like the product, and now we fill Carver for the Big Ten. So that was kind of the theory behind it. See if it works. Hopefully it doesn't spoil our fans and make them lazy. They come into Carver, I already saw them in Des Moines. So, that was my thought on it. We'll see if it pans out. How have you seen the adjustments? It's the hardest part of it. They're athletic, they're physical, they're tough, they've got great energy. They've done a really good job. Since 5-for-5 passed, how has that impacted your recruiting? So, the 5-for-5 is there, but it doesn't apply to the people who just left. My understanding is those guys have to go to court, essentially, and have to be in a certain state. And then they become kind of eligible. And we'll see, because the NCAA is coming back at them. So I think it's still pretty risky, unless they just have some blanket deal. How the 5-for-5 affects us is... It's a good question. We're still trying to navigate that. I think as the summer goes, as the season progresses, I think we'll be able to navigate that a little bit better. But to just say, we're going to do it this way, we're going to keep these guys, these guys will leave, this guy will leave, we just don't know quite yet, because it just came out. I still want high school kids. I think I'm better than high school kids, so that's what I'm going to start with. With the departure of Bennett and Brendan, who are your leaders? It still remains to be seen. Our younger guys have a lot of juice. That whole... I don't know if you'd call it freshman class, now sophomore class. Tate. Well, Howard's been really good. Trevin, Peyton, Cooper Cotch. Those guys have been really good with their energy right now. That group has been great. Tre's been great with his energy. Those younger guys, their energy has been really, really good. And so, if they can keep going down that path, it might be leadership by committee. I'm not a big captain guy. I don't really do that. It's just, you know, the natural leaders lead, and the followers follow. Just to clarify, Tavion, would you categorize it as unlikely for him? I mean, impossible, doors still open. I guess I don't really categorize it as anything because I don't really have all the information to know because the understanding is that you have to get a judge to rule in your state. And I don't know if that's totally true, but that's my understanding. You also don't see a lot of that from the Big Ten. There's a lot of litigation from the Big Ten that I've seen, but I might be wrong on that too. So, I would say it's probably no comment on one way or the other because I really don't know the information. The second I say it, some troll from a different team will say that I said that and that I was wrong. So, I'm just going to leave it at whatever Tyler says is what I said. You mentioned the last five minutes of the game. From your experience, how long does that take to find those last five minutes of the game? Sometimes it can take going into the season. I've had teams that will be seven, eight games into the season and it will be awful in the last five minutes. And then something clicks and then it goes. You kind of have to let things naturally happen a little bit. I wish we could just try hitting everything that's really clean and pretty every single day. It's just not that way. It's not the way I coach. So, it could be the first game, it could be the second game, it could be the third. We'll have a plan for it. It may not work, but then eventually we'll find the right plan. Does that come down to point guards, essentially, typically? That's what it's come down to in the past. We'll see if it comes down to it this year or not. Again, we've played through point guards for years and years. It doesn't mean we can't adapt. I mean, people forget Bennett was second-team all-conference for two straight years. He was the point guard for second-team all-league. I had two MVPs on their team. A big guy. And then I had another off-guard, twitchy guard. So, we can play different ways. We've done it a lot. How's the transition going for McKeever? Good, I think. He comes from a real program. St. Mary's is a real program, and they coach their kids. So, his transition has been a lot better. The biggest thing is figuring out exactly how you use him, what his strengths and weaknesses are, outside of being tall. And then making sure that we put him in the right position to be successful. His workload, he works. He's tough. He's a good kid. Grant, we've only had like an hour being in here, but it seems like you have a lot of different guys that are capable of playing this year. I know it's way too early to really trim down the lineup and the rotation, but realistically, how many different guys do you think could play, and how many guys have you played in the past? What's been your biggest rotation? I think my biggest has been roughly 9 or 10. It would have been... It might have been 10, maybe 20, 12, 13 maybe. Then we had an Elite 18 or Sweet 16 team that might have played. 9, 10, some of that range. Then we had 11 guys in the roster. We have 11, 12 guys that could play. So, yeah, I think whoever wins it, wins it. He'll work himself out with Trevor. Do you have a primary ball handler this year? Obviously, Bennett took a lot of that last year. Is there a guy that's stepped up and you think you'll have a primary ball handler? Who is that? It could be a lot of people. Trevor was one of them today. He could bring it up and handle the ball. He could just be unique. Yeah, I don't know. I would say that we've probably got a group of six or seven that can bring it up consistently and get the job done. Then we just have to be a little bit different in how we play until we really get that down and running. The downside to the 5-for-5 is it betrays last season like he could have played. I guess, how have you seen the way he's interpreted the ruling and as far as his determination moving forward and how have you seen him take that next step and where do you see him fitting in? Those kind of things don't make sense to me. That's one of the things that doesn't make sense. I understand medical red shirts not being one. But a person that essentially, their coach had a meeting with them and said, you probably won't play as much as you like. I think you should red shirt. He gets advice to do that. Now he's punished because of the advice that I would have given him. That one is tough for me to swallow. We'll see where that goes. Outside of that, I think it's great. Let's just do away with all the legislation and petitions and all that stuff. Let's have real rules at some point. And let's have leagues. Stop suing every 10 seconds. And then we can get ourselves. It's like somebody that's like in the world that we live in anyway. If you don't like something, just go sue. Well, the rules are the rules. You knew the dang rules when you did it. But then we just go sue and we get what we want. Let's figure out what the actual rules are. Let's get them dialed in. Let's try to follow them as a group. Hopefully, the coaches will start following them. Hopefully, the schools will start following them. I don't know. Probably won't. How's Peyton doing coming off the injury? Doing good. This is his week and a half in. Essentially six months off. He's been playing well. He did a great job with Brad and Logan getting rehab back to health. He's had some good practices. He's competed. All that. Why is scrimmaging so much this summer been important to the development of the guys getting ready for this? I think development-wise, it's best to play 5-on-5. One, teach your 5-on-5. Two, sometimes you got to figure out what you have. The only way you learn that is let them play with their natural instincts and allow them to do and make mistakes and play however they want to play. Figure out what their natural strengths are and then guide them down that path to always play to those strengths more consistently. I don't think you can learn that if you just come in and put a leash on them right away. Putting them in a box isn't a bad thing. Putting a leash on guys is a bad thing. Because then they always feel controlled. But if they have an area that they can play in, they can do whatever the heck they want within that area. We think that that helps them grow and helps us figure out what we have.