By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

It’s been so long since Ben McCollum has suffered through a three-game losing streak, it’s been purged from his memory bank.

McCollum, in his first season as Iowa’s men’s basketball coach, is going through one now heading into Saturday’s game at Indiana.

The last time a McCollum-coached team lost three consecutive games was in 2013 when McCollum was at Northwest Missouri State.

“One, I don’t remember,” McCollum said when that streak was brought up on a video conference with the media on Friday. “But two, I think the amount in a row is probably irrelevant. I think that’s more of, like, an outside perspective, if you will.”

The Hawkeyes (12-5 overall, 2-4 Big Ten) have lost to Minnesota, Illinois and Purdue in consecutive games by a combined margin of 16 points. 

“I think it’s just, OK, are we continuing to improve?” McCollum said. “Are we continuing to grow and get better? Ultimately, you still want to win the game, any competitor does, but whether it’s three in a row or three throughout a season, it’s all kind of the same. The message is just to continue to get better, continue to stay process focused, but here’s some of the things that we didn’t do, and had we done that we could have won probably any of the three, to be perfectly honest.

“I mean, they were all right there, but we just weren’t ready to be able to do those as a team. We weren’t ready to make those plays down the stretch.”

There is a patience that McCollum is preaching as the Hawkeyes play this season with a roster that was put together last spring.

“I think sometimes when you take over a program, you can try to speed it up to get a result,” McCollum said. “But in reality, no, there’s nothing that can speed creating a winning program.”

McCollum said there were differences last season when he took over Drake’s program and lost just four games, winning the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament titles and reaching the NCAA Tournament.

“I had four guys (transfer from Northwest Missouri State), three of which had been with me for four or five, six seasons,” McCollum said. “And so it naturally sped up that environment. They understood winning. They were talented enough for the Missouri Valley. Obviously they weren’t out of high school because they weren’t recruited to that level. But once they got there, they knew how to win, and they knew all the little nuances.

“Daniel Abreu wasn’t going to miss a box-out with under five minutes to go, Mitch Mascari was going to make sure we knew exactly what we’re running and get the exact shot that we want, because he was going to make sure that everybody was on the same page.”

McCollum said he thinks his current team is starting to understand that.

“You can feel them seeing it, like, ‘Gosh, if I made those three plays, I could have won that game, if I simply was in the right ball-screen coverage there, I could have won that game.’ And those are things that a Daniel Abreu wouldn’t have made that mistake, but he’s also played for me for six years. So that’s a big deal.”

Saturday’s game against the Hoosiers (12-5, 3-3) will be a matchup of not only McCollum and previous Drake coach Darian DeVries, but also DeVries’ son Tucker and Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz, the last two players of the year in the MVC.

“They’ve got a lot of offensive firepower,” McCollum said. “They’re pretty talented offensively, in particular. Defensively, they do a good job of keeping you in front, being physical on the ball. Obviously a really good basketball team, tough place to play. Going to be a tough opponent. Tucker’s a great kid, obviously a really good player, one of the best to play in Missouri Valley in quite some time, and obviously excellent at this level as well. And then (Darian DeVries) got good talent, good players. It’ll be a tough game.”

Photo: Iowa’s players huddle during Wednesday’s loss at Purdue. (Photo from Iowa Athletic Communications)