Iowa basketball guard Bennett Stirtz is winning on and off the floor.
The 6-foot-4, 180-pound senior guard announced his engagement to his fiancé, Taygen Brown. The pair of high school sweethearts shared their big news via Instagram on Thursday.
Stirtz followed head coach Ben McCollum from Drake to Iowa following a 31-4 season with the Bulldogs that saw Drake advance to the NCAA Tournament’s Round of 32. The former Drake Bulldog is the reigning Larry Bird Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year and is viewed as a potential first-round 2026 NBA draft pick.
Stirtz averaged 19.2 points, 5.7 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 2.1 steals per game on 49.8% field goal shooting and 39.5% 3-point accuracy.
“Yeah, he just wants to win. He’s extremely unselfish. He’d rather go in a game and have zero points and have a few assists and everybody else score 15. That’s just his personality. That’s what makes him great, but his IQ and his feel to be able to punish a defense is what makes him elite. It’s try to find a way to win,” McCollum said of Stirtz in July.
Stirtz is the headliner in a roster overhaul that also features fellow Drake transfers Tavion Banks, Kael Combs, Isaia Howard and Cam Manyawu, Robert Morris transfer Alvaro Folgueiras and Kansas State transfer Brendan Hausen.
Iowa recently announced two more nonconference dates against Western Illinois on Nov. 7 and Western Michigan on Dec. 14.
Thoughts on exactly what type of team coach McCollum and the Hawkeyes will employ in 2025-26 vary. Big Ten Network analyst Andy Katz wasn’t high on the Hawkeyes in his recent Big Ten basketball power rankings, but many believe Iowa will make an NCAA Tournament return this coming season.
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