By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

IOWA CITY, Iowa — Tavion Banks has seen the Bennett Stirtz show before — first at Drake, now at Iowa — so when Stirtz was having one of those days on Sunday against Northwestern at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Banks knew what to do.

“I’d just be like, ‘Let him do his thing,’” Banks said after the Hawkeyes’ 76-70 win at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. “If they tried to double-team him, I’d try to help him out. He throws the ball to me, I throw it right back to him.

“He’s on fire. Let him do his thing.”

After Stirtz finished with a career-high 36 points on 12-of-20 shooting, coach Ben McCollum — he’s seen Stirtz do his thing at Northwest Missouri State, Drake, and now Iowa — said that great players are the ones who are allowed to be great by those around them.

“What I mean by that is a lot of teams have great players, and Bennett’s obviously one of the best, in my mind,” McCollum said. “Their teammates want some more shine out of it, and so they won’t allow that player to be great or to shine to a certain level. 

“Everything’s not built just so that Bennett can have big games, but when (defenses are) staying home, his teammates allow him to shoot and to do those things and just want to win. And I think at this level, you don’t see a lot of that where guys aren’t as unselfish.”

Stirtz had 22 points in the second half to wake up the Hawkeyes after they sort of slumbered through the first half, but his intention, he said, was not to carry them.

“I didn’t feel that at all. The offense, we were kind of in a lull and a little asleep, and I knew that I needed to get going late in the first half. And it wasn’t just me out there.”

Stirtz nodded toward Banks, sitting next to him in the post-game press conference.

“T played great,” Stirtz said of Banks, the only other Hawkeye in double figures with 13 points. “Alvaro (Folgueiras) … it’s a team game.

“And they were there for me.”

Iowa (18-5 overall, 8-4 Big Ten) won its sixth consecutive game, and the one constant through the streak has been Stirtz. He has averaged 26.2 points, shooting 56.4% from the field, in the streak, tying a career-high with 32 points in last Sunday’s 84-66 win at Oregon, then breaking that mark in this game.

“I actually did know, there wasn’t a scoreboard with points on it at Oregon, so I had no clue,” Stirtz said. “And my dad let me know, because his career high was 34 and he let me know I didn’t beat it.”

Roger Stirtz, who got his career high when he played at Emporia (Kan.) State, was going to get a call from his son after he finished with the media.

“‘Take that,’” Stirtz said, smiling, when asked what the message would be to his father. “‘Beat your career high.’ I’ll give him some crap.”

Northwestern coach Chris Collins got his first live look at Stirtz, and knew after the game that nothing he had designed in his scouting report could stop the senior guard.

“I think (with) a great player, you have to try to give them some different looks,” Collins said. “You saw at times we were trying to trap him, get the ball out of his hands. I thought he had good poise.”

The two things Collins told his players not to do was let Stirtz go to his right, and don’t let him step back for a shot that can be a dagger.

“Those are his two shots that he doesn’t miss,” Collins said. “And I felt like too many times, we kind of let him get his favorite moves. That being said, I mean, he was great, and his team needed every bit of it. He played like a senior all-league player. And, you know, sometimes you’ve got to tip your cap to great performances.”

Northwestern (10-14, 2-11) was coming off an 84-44 loss to Illinois on Wednesday, but the Hawkeyes could never truly escape the Wildcats until the late moments. Iowa had a first-half stretch of exactly seven minutes without a field goal. The Hawkeyes built a 54-40 lead with 13 minutes to play, then Northwestern kept chiseling at the margin, closing to within 70-67 with 2:04 to play.

“They played some great defense, but I think most of it was on us,” Stirtz said. “We didn’t get to a lot of screens. Sometimes the ball stuck, and we definitely got to work on that. But yeah, credit to Northwestern for putting us in tough, tough positions.”

Stirtz made enough shots, though, to keep the Hawkeyes from fully losing the lead. He had 14 of Iowa’s 16 points in a 6 ½-minute stretch late in the second half.

“He really controlled the game,” Collins said.

Nick Martinelli, who is sixth nationally in scoring at 22.7 points, scored 21 to lead Northwestern, but he had to work for that number. Thirteen of Marinelli’s points came in the second half, and was just 6 of 19 from the field in the game against a wave of Hawkeyes led by redshirt freshman Cooper Koch.

“He’s obviously a tough cover,” Stirtz said. “Cooper played great ‘D’ on him. T played great ‘D’ on him. So we just have a lot of guys that we can throw at him.”

“I thought Cooper just did an awesome job of walling up,” McCollum said. “He took away his easy stuff early.”

The Hawkeyes are stacking wins in February, the right time to do it, and McCollum wants his team to understand what games are like in the crucible of conference play in the closing weeks.

“There are just some things that we need to continue to correct and continue to grow with,’ he said. “But again, it’s the Big Ten. You’re not going to win everything by 40 points. It’s not easy like that.”

It looked easy for Stirtz, but it was, he said, because of who was around him.

“Trust my teammates and trust the work they put in, so I know that I don’t have to do it alone or go through it alone,” he said. “It’s a team game, that’s why I play it.”

Photo: Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz chases a loose ball in the second half of Sunday’s win over Northwestern. (Keith Gillett/Icon Sportswire)