Iowa is adding another prominent neutral-site men’s basketball game for Ben McCollum’s second season as head coach, with quote marks needed around the word “neutral.”
The Hawkeyes will face Virginia Tech on Nov. 10 at the Tyson Events Center in Sioux City, the university announced June 23. Tip-off time is to be announced later. Adding an Atlantic Coast Conference foe inside Iowa’s borders comes on the heels of announcements that Iowa will play two games in downtown Des Moines at the Casey’s Center — vs. Creighton of the Big East on Nov. 15 and national power Alabama of the SEC on Dec. 21.
Hearing this news on the week that Iowa announced season tickets are on sale might make folks wonder why these three power-conference opponents aren’t coming to Carver-Hawkeye Arena instead?
First, getting power-conference opponents to agree to play road games against other power-conference foes has become increasingly difficult, often with very little win-win benefit in the NCAA’s NET formula that plays a heavy influence in framing the NCAA Tournament field.
Second, that question would miss the bigger point of what McCollum is doing: Iowa appears set to play 18 home games — as it advertised in its season-tickets announcement — plus three neutral-site games plus 11 road games (10 in the Big Ten Conference, plus Nov. 20 at Xavier in the back half of a home-and-home agreement) to reach a 32-game regular-season schedule.
Add that up, and when all is finalized with the Hawkeyes’ schedule, that will mark 21 games inside the state of Iowa — 18 home, three neutral.
Twenty-one games in Iowa. Since the Big Ten expanded to 20-game conference schedules following the 2017-18 season, Iowa’s high for in-state regular-season games was 19 — including McCollum’s debut campaign, which counted one game in Des Moines (Bucknell) and one in Ames (Iowa State).
That feels like a nice overall reward for in-state fans, many of whom don’t have the means or the locale to justify a season-ticket expenditure at between $320 to $475 a pop. Central Iowans have two golden opportunities of access to see the Hawkeyes. Northwest Iowa, a haven for black-and-gold support, gets one. Hence, all three “neutral” locales will have heavy Hawkeye backing. (Iowa will head to Mobile, Alabama, in 2027 to reciprocate the Crimson Tide’s 2026 trip to our state’s capital.)
What’s important to understand is that Carver-Hawkeye Arena isn’t losing home games. The neutral-site games are essentially replacing the “MTEs” (Multi-Team Events) that Iowa and most other schools have annually participated in. Iowa played two games in Palm Springs a year ago (against Ole Miss and Grand Canyon). Would season-ticket holders prefer Alabama or Virginia Tech come to Carver? Of course. But that wouldn’t have been realistic.
Between university announcements and Register open-records requests, here are seven of the expected 12 non-conference games on Iowa’s 2026-27 schedule:
Five more “buy” games against non-power opponents are expected to sprinkle into (and round out) the non-con slate, with the customary 1-2 Big Ten games looped into the early-December mix.
Iowa’s 10 Big Ten home games this year will feature Indiana, Maryland, Minnesota, Michigan State, Nebraska, Ohio State, Oregon, Penn State, Washington and Wisconsin.
Getting back to the news of the day, the Virginia Tech matchup is interesting. First, the Hawkeyes will play in Sioux City for the first time in program history — after four jaunts to Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 2017 (vs. Colorado), 2020 (vs. Gonzaga), 2021 (vs. Utah State) and 2024 (vs. Utah). The Tyson Events Center seats roughly 10,000, or around three times the capacity of the Sanford Pentagon in Sioux Falls. Of note, the Iowa women also are playing in Sioux City on Nov. 15 against Vanderbilt, so both programs are embarking on new turf here. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. on June 26 via TicketMaster, TysonCenter.com or by visiting the Primebank Box Office at the Tyson Events Center.
Second, this is a winnable yet testy Game 2 for McCollum’s second squad. Mike Young’s Hokies narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament a year ago. For what it’s worth (and admittedly not much), Virginia Tech was projected by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi in mid-June as the “next four out” in the 2027 NCAA field, which is expanding to 76 teams.
Iowa is a projected No. 11 seed, so barely inside Lunardi’s theoretical field. Returning to the NCAAs despite the loss of probable first-round NBA Draft pick Bennett Stirtz seems reasonable after the Hawkeyes made the 2026 Elite Eight.
Continuing the non-con convo, Alabama is a projected No. 3 seed by Lunardi; Iowa State a No. 5; and Creighton a No. 10. Xavier is also among those “next four out” (or Nos. 81-84 overall).
Based on last year’s NET rankings, Iowa’s non-conference slate would feature three Quad 2 matchups in November (Virginia Tech, Creighton, Xavier) followed by two Quad 1 chances in December (Iowa State, Alabama). As with everything McCollum does, that feels like it’s by careful design.
These five matchups will offer good tests as Iowa onboards transfers Ty’Reek Coleman and Andrew McKeever into the McCollum system while getting talented redshirt freshman Trey Thompson integrated into games for the first time. Bottom line, McCollum has assembled a formidable, challenging schedule to measure his second team’s pre-January mettle.
Hawkeyes columnist Chad Leistikow has served for 31 years with The Des Moines Register and USA TODAY Sports Network. Chad is the 2023 INA Iowa Sports Columnist of the Year and NSMA Co-Sportswriter of the Year in Iowa. Join Chad’s text-message group at HawkCentral.com/HawkeyesTexts. Follow @ChadLeistikow on X.
This article originally appeared on Hawk Central: How adding Virginia Tech fortifies Iowa basketball schedule | Leistikow
Reporting by Chad Leistikow, Des Moines Register / Hawk Central
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By Chad Leistikow, Des Moines Register | USA TODAY Network
