By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

Bennett Stirtz ended last season as the Missouri Valley Conference player of the year and will start this season on the preseason All-Big Ten team.

Stirtz was named to the 10-player team on Tuesday heading into this week’s Big Ten media days in Rosemont, Ill.

Stirtz, who transferred from Drake to Iowa in the spring after Bulldogs’ coach Ben McCollum was hired to coach the Hawkeyes, is coming off a season in which he led the Missouri Valley Conference in scoring (19.2), steals (2.21) and assist-to-turnover ratio (2.86), while ranking second in assists (5.7).  He also led the NCAA in minutes played, averaging 39 minutes, 22 seconds per game.

The Hawkeyes have been represented on the preseason All-Big Ten team, voted on by a media panel, in six of the last seven seasons. Previous Hawkeye honorees include Joe Wieskamp (2019), Luka Garza (2020), Keegan Murray (2021), Kris Murray (2022) and Payton Sandfort (2024).

Purdue’s Braden Smith, the lone unanimous selection to the team, was also named the preseason player of the year. The rest of the team includes Yaxel Lendeborg (Michigan), Nick Martinelli (Northwestern), Bruce Thornton (Ohio State), Nate Bittle and Jackson Shelstad (Oregon), Trey Kaufman-Renn (Purdue), Donoven Dent (UCLA) and John Blackwell (Wisconsin).
MEN’S START TIMES: Twenty-six of Iowa’s 31 regular-season games will be televised. The Hawkeyes will appear on BTN 13 times, FS1 seven times, FOX four times and CBS Sports Network twice.

Iowa will also be on streaming services Peacock (three games) and B1G+ (twice).

The Hawkeyes’ games on FOX are Illinois (Jan. 11), at Indiana (Jan. 17), Purdue (Feb. 14) and at Nebraska (March 8). 

Iowa’s FS1 games include: Xavier (Nov. 14), Maryland (Dec. 6), at Oregon (Feb. 1), Northwestern (Feb. 8), at Maryland (Feb. 11) and at Wisconsin (Feb. 22).

The Hawkeyes will appear on NBC’s Peacock three times – at Michigan State (Dec. 2), UCLA (Jan. 3) and Michigan (March 5).

Two nonconference home games, Western Illinois (Nov. 7) and Chicago State (Nov. 20), will be streamed on B1G+.

The start time and television network for the game at Iowa State will be released Thursday.

WOMEN’S START TIMES: Iowa’s women’s basketball team will be on four national broadcasts next season.

The Hawkeyes’ national games are against UConn (Dec. 20/FOX), at Maryland (Jan. 22/NBC), at UCLA (Feb. 1/FOX), and at Nebraska (Feb. 16/FOX). Iowa’s game with Michigan on Feb. 22 will broadcast on FOX or FS1 with a tip-off time that is still to be determined.

Iowa’s games on BTN are Drake (Nov. 13), Fairfield (Nov. 30), Penn State (Dec. 28), Nebraska (Jan. 1), at Northwestern (Jan. 5), at Indiana (Jan. 11), Michigan State (Jan. 18), Minnesota (Feb. 5), and Illinois (Feb. 26).

The Jan. 25 home game against Ohio State and the Jan. 29 game at USC will be on Peacock. The remaining games will be on BTN-Plus.

Photo: Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz was named to the preseason All-Big Ten team on Tuesday. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)