By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Trevin Jirak did the math on his record playing at the Casey’s Center in Des Moines.

“Played there nine times, and won all nine,” Jirak said, who was on a West Des Moines Valley team that won three championships at the Iowa high school state tournament played at the arena, formerly known as Wells Fargo Arena. “So, pretty good record there.”

Jirak, now a freshman at Iowa, goes back to the downtown Des Moines venue on Saturday, when the Hawkeyes take on Bucknell in a 5 p.m. game.

“It’s going to be a lot of fun,” Jirak said. “I’m really excited to head back there and have a lot of family and friends in town. So I’m really excited for that. Should be a good time.”

The Hawkeyes (9-2) have won seven of their last eight games at the Casey’s Center dating back to 2013. It’s a familiar court for the program, and playing a neutral-court in-state game is something coach Ben McCollum wants to continue.

“I’d like to do it with a Power Five school,” McCollum said.

This game was scheduled before McCollum was hired in March — the Hawkeyes were supposed to play Saint Louis, coached by Josh Schertz, a good friend of McCollum’s.

“I was like, ‘I really don’t want to play my good friend in Des Moines,’ so we switched it,” McCollum said. “And at that point, all the Power Fives, we just couldn’t get one. So then you’re just like, ‘OK, who do we play?’ And it just so happened to be (Bucknell). But yeah, we would love to do that with Power Five competition.”

The Hawkeyes did play Saint Louis in one of their two preseason closed scrimmages.

“Which was a great scrimmage, because (Schertz) is a good coach,” McCollum said. “I called him, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I don’t really want to play either.’”

It will be a return to Des Moines for McCollum, who coached at Drake last season, and six of his former Drake players who transferred with him after he got the Iowa job.

“I know we left Drake, but I miss some of the fans,” said forward Tavion Banks. “Especially one of my favorite fans, I hope she’s there. I think it’s going to be a good experience and a great environment to be in. Just can’t wait to be there and see how it goes.”

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH THE ALUMNI: McCollum has had a lot to do since arriving with Iowa.

One of the next steps, he said, is building relationships with former Iowa players.

“I think the importance of that is probably more important than people would think,” he said. “I think we would like to do a great job of that. We would like to get them back. We would like to have activities where people can engage.”

It’s something McCollum said he has talked to former players about when they have contacted him.

“I try to make sure that when they text me,that it’s always, ‘hey, you’re always welcome to come to a practice or to game,’” he said. “And a matter of fact, we’d actually like that. And we would like them to engage. We would like them back. We would like them to be a part of it. Anybody that’s played here, even ones that have transferred out of here, they’re still a Hawkeye.”

COACHING HIS SON: McCollum’s son, Peyton, is a freshman with the Hawkeyes, but the coach said on Thursday that once he’s off the court, there isn’t any talk about basketball.

Asked how he balances being a father and a coach to his son, McCollum said, “I probably don’t do a great job of balancing that. Probably just the nature of this profession is tricky like that. You know, especially once you have a level of success, the balance of family versus your job isn’t at an elite level. And I’ve always felt like high achievers or people that win or just achieve in life, a lot of times the balance is just not there. You know, it’s out of balance. So, I mean, we balance it the best we can. I try not to talk about basketball outside of basketball, and he does a good job of that.”

There’s also another reason behind that, McCollum said.

“He’s not really allowed, unless it’s an earth-shattering thing, he can’t really tell me what’s going on in the team,” McCollum said. “So I just said, ‘I don’t want to know. If people are talking in the locker room, don’t tell me, because I don’t want to put you in that spot,’ because then people will think that it comes from him and it doesn’t. I just outlaw basketball conversation like that. So it helps.”

Photo: Trevin Jirak (27) and the Iowa basketball team listen to coach Ben McCollum in a game earlier this season. (Greg Fiore/Icon Sportswire)