The Nebraska basketball team has plenty going against it these days. The Huskers are going to see some of the best players to come through the program in a while depart after a season that went bad enough that its head coach is starting to feel his seat warm up.
And now, the Cornhuskers are going to have to face an Iowa Hawkeyes program that has one of the best young up and coming coaches in the country. This is why Nebraska fans in the know were likely sad that their Big Ten rival got rid of Fran McCaffrey. While his team beat NU twice this season, he’d clearly lost his touch as a head coach. Unfortunately, now it appears they’ve managed to reload.
David Eickholt of 247Sports reported early Sunday morning that the Nebraska basketball rival was very close to hiring Drake Bulldogs head coach Ben McCollum. In accepting the job, he won’t have to move far, but he’ll be moving up a level all the same.
Nebraska basketball rival hires rising star of a head coach
Before taking the job with Drake, McCollum was a longtime Division II coach who had enormous success, winning four national championships at Northwest Missouri State. Over his fifteen years as the head man, McCollum went 395-91 (.813) overall and 241-63 (.793) in conference play.
This was his first season with Drake and he led them to a 31-4 record. Drake was one of the few teams who pulled an upset in the first round of the NCAA Tournament as they took down No. 6 Missouri, 67-57. They battled in the round of 32 against Texas Tech but ultimately fell short 77-64.
The Nebraska basketball rival moved quickly as Iowa likely knew that McCollum was on many programs’ short list, including West Virginia who just lost their head coach, as Darian DeVries made the jump to the Indiana Hoosiers. Both these hires could mean a shift in the balance of power in the Big Ten. While the Huskers just try to find their footing.