By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa — The final deficit was six points, and Ben McCollum knew where to find them.

Iowa’s 75-69 loss to Illinois at Carver-Hawkeye Arena was frustrating for the first year coach of the Hawkeyes, who knows his team — and his program — are going to get to where he wants.

The destination has yet to be reached.

It would be easy for McCollum to point to the 19th-ranked Hawkeyes’ ugly start — they trailed 8-0 after three minutes, 21-5 at the 11:47 mark, 29-11 with 7 ½ minutes left in the first half.

He could point to the foul trouble of Bennett Stirtz, his leading scorer this season who sat seven minutes in the second half after picking up his fourth foul, but his team outscored the Illini 18-10 in his absence.

No, for Iowa to be the team and program that McCollum wants, it’s about making plays.

So he went for the missed layup by Tavion Banks with the Hawkeyes down 71-67 with 41 seconds left, and then the missed layup by Stirtz four seconds later. He also went to the missed layup by Alvaro Folgueiras with 3:30 remaining and Iowa down 65-59.

Six points.

“Those are all pretty easy points,” McCollum said. “You know, you take those six points back, you know, all of a sudden, it’s a different story. But that’s what good teams do. You have to finish some of those things.”

Iowa is 12-4 overall, 2-3 in the Big Ten, but the Hawkeyes weren’t at their best this week. There was Tuesday’s 70-67 loss at Minnesota that felt much like this one — a poor start followed by a furious finish that fell short — and then this game.

But this is a game McCollum would have especially liked to have won — at home in front of a near-sellout crowd of 13,559, on national television, and against the team ranked 16th in the nation that also happens to be a rival. That destination he seeks would have looked like it was closer than it does after a defeat like this.

“(The) Minnesota (game) was like, hey, just didn’t totally come ready to play, awesome way to show that you can come back,” McCollum said. “But not today. You’ve got to come ready.

“Not today. Not today.”

“We’ve just got to pull out games like that at home,” forward Cooper Koch said. “I know we want it. We want it for the fans, for us, for the team.”

“It’s a long season ahead,” Stirtz said. “We’ve got plenty of time to figure it out.”

The Hawkeyes couldn’t figure out the Illini early. Illinois (13-3, 4-1) found ways to glide through Iowa’s defense, and McCollum used three of his timeouts in the first half looking for solutions.

“Lack of energy,” he said. “Lack of concentration.”

“I think it was more just that we didn’t execute the scout,” Koch said. “We didn’t execute the scout on defense or offense, and they punished us early, and then we struggled climbing out of the hole.”

The Hawkeyes had four missed shots and a turnover on their opening five possessions, and that didn’t help, either.

Stirtz was hounded from the start, and every Illinois player on the court, it seemed, took turns guarding him. He made just one of his first six shots, and ended up with 12 points on 5 of 17 shooting.

“Just make it hard,” Illinois coach Brad Underwood said. “He’s really good. You’re not going to take everything away from him.”

“They tried to change it up,” Stirtz said. “And it worked.”

McCollum said Iowa’s slow starts put pressure on Stirtz.

“When we come out flat, it just feels pretty lonely out there from an offensive perspective for him,” McCollum said. “It’s just like he’s having to do everything and force things, and all five guys (on defense) are shrinking on him. I don’t think people realize how much they’re shrinking on him.”

Stirtz’s foul trouble in recent games has McCollum puzzled. He had four in last Saturday’s 74-61 win over UCLA, had three against Minnesota, and then came this game, when he picked up his fourth foul with 11:36 left in the second half.

“I’m putting myself in bad situations,” Stirtz said. “Nothing that the refs are doing. I’ve got to just stop putting myself in the position. Two of them in the past two games were when they stole (the ball) from me and I fouled, so I’m just trying to stay away as much as I can.”

“I would just like to be able to keep him in the game,” McCollum said.

Iowa did get plenty of production from Banks, who led the Hawkeyes with 16 points. He didn’t start after being affected this week with a stomach virus, but provided some energy others didn’t have.

“I’m disappointed with a few guys in the start,” McCollum said. “Tavion probably lost, what, 10 pounds in the last two days and was throwing up in the locker room afterwards, and he didn’t seem to have any issues. And so I’m disappointed in that. Really disappointed.”

There was disappointment for McCollum in another sequence where he added up the points lost. Illinois made three consecutive open 3-pointers in the second half, two by 7-foot-2 center Zvonimir Ivisic. The fact that he was lost by Iowa’s defense was bothersome to the coach.

“He’s a shooter,” McCollum said. “That’s what he does. He’s a shooter. You can’t just leave him wide open, and he never posts.”

Keaton Wagler had 19 points to lead the Illini, and Andrej Stojakovic and Kylan Boswell each added 17.

It was a game with an atmosphere that felt a lot like the stormy days of the Iowa-Illinois rivalry, and McCollum appreciated the cacophony of Carver-Hawkeye.

“Keep coming, keep fighting, keep doing those things, we will too,” he said. “Disappointed that we lost, but happy to see what we’re slowly building, and we’ll continue to build and continue to fight.”

Every game, it seems, puts a piece in what McCollum is constructing. The finishing segments, though, are elusive.

“You need to win these, and it’s time to win this kind of game,” McCollum said. “We’ve proven that we can, but we haven’t proved that we actually will.

“And it’s time to do that.”

Photo: Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz (right) shoots in the first half of Sunday’s game against Illinois. (Photo from Iowa Athletic Communications)