Iowa might not be an NCAA Tournament Cinderella, but the Hawkeyes’ Elite Eight trip is quite a tale

Iowa might not be an NCAA Tournament Cinderella, but the Hawkeyes’ Elite Eight trip is quite a tale originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

Two years ago, Ben McCollum was the head coach and Bennett Stirtz was the star player for an institution known as Northwest Missouri State. It’s a Division II program so lacking in self-consciousness they’ve declined to abandon the directional aspect of the name, unlike Southwestern Louisiana and Central Florida.

Two years ago, Alvaro Folgueiras was a freshman at Robert Morris who’d come from Spain to play a year of high school ball, and essentially no one but RMU coach Andy Toole noticed his promise, but even at that understood he was ready for only 17 minutes a game – 17 minutes at the Horizon League level – his freshman year.

Now, McCollum, Stirtz and Folgueiras are together at Iowa.

And they are March Madness heroes.

MARCH MADNESS HQ:Live NCAA bracket | TV schedule | Latest news and more

Seriously, this March Madness. Not the DII one where McCollum and Stirtz combined for two national titles, but the one with Duke, Arizona and Michigan as No. 1 seeds. Cinderella is not dead in the NCAA Tournament. There’s just been a change of slippers. Or jerseys. Whatever, it’s your metaphor.

Thursday, they earned a 77-71 comeback victory in the Sweet 16 against Big Ten rival Nebraska. Stirtz scored 20 points, passed for 4 assists and did not commit a turnover. Neither did he come out of the game, even though he was the primary defender assigned to NU star Pryce Sandfort.

Folgueiras scored 16, including the decisive and-1 layup with 56 seconds left and the clinching dunk on a devastating baseline drive 22 seconds later. He missed only a single shot and finished the game at plus-12.

McCollum did a lot right in helping Iowa to recover from a 10-point first-half deficit and finish the game on a 15-6 run, but the key to breaking open a 3-point game inside the final minute was assuring there were five players on the floor for the inbound play following a timeout. Nebraska coach Fred Hoiberg called it a “miscommunication.”

McCollum confessed he didn’t notice the Huskers had only four on the floor. “But Alvaro did, and that’s the guy that needed to see it,” he told Turner Sports. “I didn’t understand why he was so open … well, there we go!”

MORE: Ben McCollum’s road from Division II to the Big Ten

Folgueiras transferred to Iowa after a massive improvement his sophomore year at Robert Morris, when he averaged 14.1 points, 9.8 rebounds and was named Horizon League Player of the Year. He scored 15 points and got 10 rebounds in a near-upset of No. 2 seed Alabama.

For all the complaints about the immediate eligibility component of the transfer portal, and how it’s impacting mid-major programs, do athletes like Stirtz and Folgueiras really not deserve the chance to compete at the college game’s highest level if they prove worthy?

And aren’t they proving themselves worthy if they’re in the South Region final?

Iowa has not been in the NCAA Elite Eight since 1987, when the stars were Roy Marble, B.J. Armstrong and Brad Lohaus and they nearly knocked off top seed UNLV. None of them ever played a minute of college basketball for anyone but the Hawkeyes. Marble even sent his son to Iowa, and Roy Devyn Marble added another 1,694 points to the family legacy.

It’s different now. Stirtz didn’t have the opportunity to play at Iowa – or any other Division I school — when he left Liberty High in Missouri, even though he was all-state and led his team to a runner-up finish in the state’s largest classification. He got the opportunity to play at Division I because Drake hired McCollum as coach, and McCollum got that job because he understood talent. And when they won 31 games and an NCAA Tournament game against Missouri, Iowa made the wise move to hire him.

Of course McCollum came along, and getting the opportunity to compete in the Big Ten Conference has presented his skills to a broader array of NBA scouts and began to convince them he could compete at the highest level. He has averaged 19.7 points, 4.5 assists and 38 minutes a game.

“That’s my guy,” Stirtz told Turner Sports. “It’s been a long four years, but it’s also been a short four years. I’ve grown not just as a basketball player, but as a man.”

Also, as a star. He was largely unknown at Northwest Missouri. Now, the Sporting News mock NBA Draft for 2026 is among those that places Stirtz as a first-round selection.

NBA SCOUTING REPORT: Why Bennett Stirtz will find a home at next level

The Iowa defense held Nebraska to just 28 percent shooting in the second half, with big man Rienk Mast – who was not on the floor on that Folgueiras layup and could be seen hustling off the bench to check in – going 1-of-7 from the field, 0-for-5 on 3-pointers.

“That’s part of toughness is not having your best stuff, being able to turn it around,” McCollum said. “And our kids did.”

You want to pretend Iowa is not a Cinderella team, that’s OK.

Cinderella is a fairy tale.

This team is real.

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