By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Ben McCollum used his introductory press conference as Iowa’s new men’s basketball coach on Tuesday as a recruiting pitch to rebuild the Hawkeyes’ roster.

He wouldn’t mind starting with some members of this season’s team.

“One thing we can start with is see if we can get Pryce (Sandfort), Cooper (Koch), Josh (Dix, see if we can get them some support as well,” McCollum said, smiling. “Maybe just text them or tweet them or anything like that and get them excited about coming back to the University of Iowa and making this thing grow. That would be good support to start.”

McCollum won 31 games at Drake this season after having to practically rebuild all of the Bulldogs’ roster after he was hired last spring, and he’ll have to do that as well with the Hawkeyes.

Eight Hawkeyes, including Sandfort, Koch and Dix, entered the NCAA’s transfer portal in the days after coach Fran McCaffery was fired. Two have already found new homes — Owen Freeman, the team’s leading scorer and rebounder this season, announced Wednesday night he was going to Creighton, and center Riley Mulvey announced earlier on Wednesday that he was heading to Siena.

It’s why McCollum began right away to try to lure them back.

“You do have to take certain transfers, but again, that goes with us making sure that we try to retain some of the kids that are wanting to go into the portal right now and do it quickly,” McCollum said. “And, again, so I’ve said, it takes everybody. It takes everybody to get those kids back. Like that’s what it’s going to take, and that’s what we want, because they’re tough kids and they’re Iowa and they’ll be great for us.”

McCollum said he would like those players to be a part of his rebuilding plan, if anything because of the team’s struggles this season — Iowa went 17-16 and didn’t play in a postseason tournament.

“How cool would it be for some of them to be a part of … obviously they finished towards the bottom, but now moving up toward the top, and they’re the reason for the change,” McCollum said. “Like that to me is as cool as it gets. And that’s our sell to them. And we’re going to continue down that path, and we’re going to fight for them to maintain and be here, because they’re loved here. We love our Hawkeyes. We love Iowa. And we want them to stay. I feel like it’s going good, but I don’t know. We’ll find out here.”

There is also the likelihood that some of McCollum’s players at Drake will follow him. Bennett Stirtz, the Missouri Valley Conference’s player of the year this season, has already said he’s coming to Iowa.

“I mean, he’s probably, if he’s not the best point guard in the country, he’s top two or three,” McCollum said. “So that’s a pretty good fit right there.”

Three other Drake players — guard Kael Combs, small forward Isaia Howard and power forward Cam Manyawu — have also entered the transfer portal. Manyawu started all 35 games for the Bulldogs this season, Combs played in 31 games and Howard played in 30.

Asked if he would recruit any Drake players to come with him, McCollum said. “If they go in the portal and they opt in, you know, you always look at everybody who’s in the portal, to not be too specific or detailed because I’m not sure who’s in and who’s out. So I don’t want to actively recruit somebody like that right now. We’ll look at anybody that goes in the portal, to be quite honest.”

There are other directions McCollum can go as well — DePaul point guard Conor Enright reportedly has a visit to Iowa scheduled for next Monday.

McCollum’s pitch will cover three areas, he said.

“One, it’s the University of Iowa. I think it’s a big deal,” he said. “I think it’s pretty cool to be here. I love the campus. I love everything surrounding it. I love the support. I love the fans. I’ve been around it my whole life. So you sell that, number one.

“Two, the relationships that we’re going to have with them is a big deal. So we sell the people. So we’ll sell the people that — my assistants, my staff. We’ll sell anyone that’s in the program at that point.

“And, three, just making sure that they understand we’ve won a lot, and if you want to be infected with some of those winning characteristics that we can bring to the table, this is where you should be. And if you want to go somewhere else for a certain amount of whatever, then go do that. But we’re going to make you better.”

Photo: Former Drake guard Bennett Stirtz (14) will be joining coach Ben McCollum at Iowa. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)