By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

Ben McCollum doesn’t have a set philosophy on how he uses his timeouts, or whether a player sits for the rest of the first half after picking up two fouls.

Iowa fans have learned a lot about their new men’s basketball coach in his first three games. McCollum coaches by feel rather than by a set strategy, and that has been seen in some of his decisions.

A good example of that came in Friday’s 81-62 win over Xavier. Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz made a layup with 5:27 left in the first half that gave the Hawkeyes a 28-25 lead, but McCollum quickly called a timeout after the play.

McCollum used another timeout with 11:18 left in the game after a Stirtz layup put Iowa up 65-44.

“I have no rhyme or reason,” McCollum said of his timeout usage during Monday’s video conference with the Iowa media. “A lot of it is my gut.”

McCollum asked about when he took his first timeout, and whether it was after a made basket.

“I do that a lot,” he said. “Just feels good. Sometimes, it’s like, maybe the other team was on a run, and I want something positive coming into the timeout, rather than those timeouts where the other team’s on a run and you call it, and then they’re all cheering in the huddle. It’s like, ‘No, I just hit a three, and then I call a timeout so we get to cheer.’

“Maybe guys are tired. It could be that sometimes that there’s an adjustment that could cause a run, like, OK, they did something. It’s something that we can’t guard that could cause a 10-0 run. I need to make sure that I call a timeout to get that dialed in. There’s a variety of things. … If you asked me about specific timeouts, I could probably tell you exactly why I called it. But most of the time I go in and I just kind of don’t have a rhyme or reason. It’s based on that game, based on feel, based on what feels right for our team.”

McCollum doesn’t think about saving timeouts for end-of-game situations.

“I’m not smart enough in the last two minutes to draw something up,” McCollum quipped. “I mean, what are we going to draw up, give the ball to Bennett, get out of his way? It’s not rocket science. That’s what every coach draws up anyway, don’t they? Every single coach in America, the last second, they always have these cool draws, but it still goes back to who’s going to shoot the ball. Purdue is going to go to Braden Smith. That’s what people are going to do.”

McCollum also goes by feel on whether to use a player who gets two fouls in the first half, rather than sit him the rest of the half.

“I generally will play guys,” he said. 

McCollum went back to Friday’s game when Alvaro Folgueiras picked up his second foul with 9:51 left in the first half. Folgueiras was subbed out after the second foul and didn’t return until the second half. Iowa led 19-17 when Folgueiras went out, then closed the half with a 26-12 run.

“We were going to put him back in (in the first half),” McCollum said. “We took him out right then, just to make sure he didn’t get his third quickly, and then we were going to put him back in. But then we made a run, and we didn’t need him.”

McCollum said the decision often comes down to trusting the individual player.

“I’ve played players with three fouls (in the first half),” he said. “Part of it is, per player, if they’re foul-prone and can’t help themselves, you can’t do it.”

Photo: Iowa coach Ben McCollum draws up a play during a timeout in the November 7 game against Western Illinois. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)