After going on a torrid six-game winning streak, the Hawkeyes have stumbled mightily over the past few weeks.
Following a tough loss to rival Wisconsin at the Kohl Center in Madison over the weekend, Iowa has now lost three of its last four games and is struggling to find consistency.
Excluding an emotional win over Nebraska, Iowa has not put together complete game performances, faltering late in all three losses to Maryland, Purdue, and Wisconsin.
Ben McCollum knows his squad's offensive shortcomings, but he has continually pointed to Iowa's poor defense in this recent string of losses.
McCollum said he was 'disappointed' with Iowa's ball-screen, transition defense
Iowa finally had a semblance of offense against the Badgers before running out of gas late in the loss, but before the 71-point performance, they scored under 60 points in back-to-back games.
Despite Iowa's massive problem scoring the basketball, McCollum was more disappointed with the defense in the loss to Wisconsin.
Ben McCollum: “Obviously, credit Wisconsin. I thought they did a good job offensively. They put you in a lot of binds. I didn’t think we did a very good job defensively. Honestly, I thought we were really poor at executing a lot of the stuff. But part of that had to do with…
— Tyler Tachman (@Tyler_T15) February 23, 2026
Teams with McCollum at the helm have traditonally been solid defensively, and he did not let his guys off the hook with a poor performance against the Badgers.
Even though he gave a lot of credit to the Badgers' offense, he explicitly stated that he was "disappointed" in the team's ball-screen and transition defense.
He also said they were really poor at executing a lot of stuff, and when the team is already offensively challenged, that is not a good combination.
McCollum has been a winner wherever he goes, and he does not lose many games. Ever.
After Iowa suffered its eighth loss of the season to Wisconsin, it is the first time McCollum has lost eight-plus games since he went 24-9 with Northwest Missouri State during the 2013-2014 season.
He knows what it takes to win, and there is no doubt he will make improvements as he becomes more acclimated to Big Ten basketball, but if the team is going to keep putting up poor offensive performances, they have to be sound defensively.
McCollum is not doubt frustrated by the lack of offensive consistency, but he is more frustrated with the poor defensive performances during Iowa's recent skid.