Iowa basketball player Bennett Stirtz, Nov. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)
Bennett Stirtz didn’t arrive in Division-I basketball with much fanfare. A star at Division-II Northwest Missouri State, he remained largely anonymous to the wider college hoops world, even after following coach Ben McCollum to Drake and the Missouri Valley Conference last season. How would his game translate? No one was quite sure.
Stirtz didn’t mind.
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“I kind of like being unknown,” he told Sports Spectrum for a Summer 2025 magazine feature. “It says in (1) Thessalonians, ‘Make it your mission to lead a quiet life’ (4:11). It’s hard to do that now with the platform I have.”
That platform is only getting bigger. After one season at Drake, McCollum was hired at Iowa — and Stirtz followed again. Now the senior guard is projected not just to be one of the Big Ten’s top players, but one of the best in the nation.
Several outlets even have him pegged as a 2026 first-round NBA Draft pick: ESPN slots him at No. 20, The Athletic at No. 12, and SB Nation at No. 10.
For Stirtz, the rise still feels surreal. He hit a growth spurt as a high school sophomore, which is when basketball began to feel like a real future.
“After I started growing more, I thought I could play in college,” he told Sports Spectrum. “I didn’t think I could play professionally … was not even thinking about that. It was just college.”
His quiet confidence and grounded perspective come from deep family roots. There’s a strong foundation of faith on both sides of his family, with several relatives holding various church roles. His father, Roger, says none of Bennett’s rapid ascent has changed the core of who he is.
“He simplifies everything,” Roger told Sports Spectrum. “He’s had one girlfriend in his life. He’s driven one vehicle in his life. He’s extremely loyal. It might not look like you’re loyal when you go to three different schools in your college career, but he’s committed to a coach and a system.”
That commitment began at Northwest Missouri State, where Bennett enrolled following the program winning three straight Division-II national championships. He didn’t have many scholarship offers, but he knew McCollum had a reputation for developing players.
“It was pretty simple, and luckily, it was simple,” Bennett said. “I didn’t really have many offers. If I had other offers, I probably wouldn’t have gone and played for Coach Mac, to be honest. God worked it out that way, and He obviously has a plan.”
Going to college was Stirtz’s first time really being away from home (Liberty, Missouri), and he said that’s when his faith really started to blossom.
“That’s really where my faith and my relationship with Jesus just started to strengthen because I went to Him every day,” he said. “In high school, to be honest, I didn’t really do that. I just started getting in the Word every day.”
By the time McCollum accepted the Drake job, Stirtz had become the kind of player coaches build programs around. But skepticism lingered nationally about whether a Division-II system, and a slew of Division-II transfers, could really work in the Missouri Valley Conference.
It didn’t take long for Stirtz to answer. In an early-season 80-69 win over Miami, he poured in 21 points. He followed it up the next game with 16 points and 11 assists in a win over Vanderbilt. From there, his season only grew stronger.
He led the MVC in scoring and logged more minutes per game than any player in the country. He was also the only player in the nation to score more than 600 points, tally more than 180 assists and record more than 70 steals. The only other player in conference history to accomplish that was Larry Bird — whose name sits on the league’s MVP trophy. That trophy, naturally, went to Stirtz last season.
Drake earned a No. 11 seed in the NCAA Tournament and upset No. 6 Missouri before falling to Texas Tech. When McCollum was hired at Iowa, Stirtz didn’t hesitate.
“It wasn’t hard following Coach McCollum just knowing what he’s done for me and how good I am in his system,” he said. “It was a pretty easy decision, but with all the people and just other schools reaching out to me, just lots of prayer.”
Stirtz said he turned down “a lot of money” from other programs in the transfer portal to stay with McCollum. As for the NIL temptation, he brushed it aside.
“Money is never going to satisfy you,” he said. “Fame will never satisfy you. Nothing in this world is going to satisfy you except for God.”
Through Iowa’s first four games this year — all wins — Stirtz is averaging 19.8 points and picking up right where he left off. And with his name rising in NBA mock drafts, the spotlight he once avoided is now firmly pointed his way.
“I think God’s given me a platform, and that’s one of the reasons why — and probably the biggest reason why — I play basketball, just having the platform and using the platform in the right way to give glory to Him,” he told Sports Spectrum.
His father sees it the same way.
“It’s all in the Lord’s hands,” Roger said. “He’s gifted [Bennett] with an unbelievable platform, and Bennett’s making the most of it. It’s certainly unbelievable, yet believable.”
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