By JOHN BOHNENKAMP

CHICAGO — It’s become almost routine for Iowa coach Ben McCollum in his first season.

Slow start, again.

Finding a way to win, again.

The Hawkeyes played a script that is all-too-familiar to McCollum in Wednesday’s 75-64 win over Maryland in the second round of the Big Ten Tournament — a big first-half deficit, and then that second-half flurry that always leads to the win.

And so they’re still playing. The ninth-seeded Hawkeyes (21-11) will play eighth seed Ohio State at 11 a.m. Thursday at the United Center, one game out of the way, and maybe some of those postseason jitters that went with it.

Iowa gave up a 15-0 run to the Terrapins in the first half to fall behind 21-10, then had a 21-0 run in the second half to take control of the game.

“Typical start for the ol’ Hawkeyes this year,” McCollum quipped after the game. “I don’t know what it is, but sometimes we just don’t start the greatest and then I lose my mind in a few huddles, and then, for some reason, we turn around. So maybe I should just lose my mind to start the game.”

A morning start in a quite empty arena against a team that had already played one game isn’t a recipe for some early inspiration, but the way the Terrapins (12-21) started the game did wake up the Hawkeyes.

“I thought our kids, after about the first 10 to 12 minutes, kind of settled in,” said McCollum, coaching in his first Big Ten Tournament. “I don’t know what it was, if it was just the jitters or just the environment. The concentration was pretty low to start, and I think that probably had something to do with the environment. But then we regrouped, settled in and executed our scout, which was really good.”

“I think we kind of just came out flat,” said forward Cooper Koch, who led the Hawkeyes with 19 points. “They had a game under their belt, so they were kind of tuned up ready to go. We came out not ready. After the first 10 or so minutes, we figured it out and got back into it.”

“I thought we were playing with fear in the first half, and we were trying to win in the second,” said guard Bennett Stirtz, who had 17 points.

Iowa missed five of its first six shots, and committed three turnovers, two on its first two possessions. The continued sloppiness finally forced McCollum into using a timeout with nine minutes remaining in the half after a turnover by Cam Manyawu.

“Man, just our concentration level wasn’t there,” McCollum said. “I don’t know, it seems unique, I love ’em. Sometimes I don’t have a lot of hair, but they’re making me lose the rest of it. Because we have a great game plan, and then you come out and it’s just like, whoa, what are we doing here? Eventually they just kind of dial it in, and they figure it out. They did a great job of executing after that. Yeah, just ‘Do what we told you to do’ was pretty much the message.”

A sign of what was to come came as the Hawkeyes closed the half. They finished the half on a 15-5 run to trail 26-25 at halftime, making four of their last five shots. Maryland missed 11 of its last 12 shots.

“I thought the defense kind of held us in there for a while,” McCollum said. “I thought our rotations were better. I thought we didn’t foul so much at the rim. We were much better at showing our hands, which was nice.“

Then came the second-half run that finally quieted the Terrapins. Iowa trailed 34-30 with 17:33 left in the game, then its long run started with back-to-back 3-pointers from Koch. Stirtz followed with back-to-back threes, the first one a wild off-balance shot as the shot clock was expiring, and Iowa was off on its run.

The Hawkeyes had nine field goals in that stretch, and had assists on every one of them.

“I thought we were making good reads,” Stirtz said. “As a collective group, I think we were flowing pretty good.”

“We passed the ball. That was nice,” McCollum said, smiling. “We got stuck (in the first half), and we didn’t see we were just trying to score on the first action. In the second half, I thought we were going to do a better job in basketball. With the actions, we did a better job of executing. We’ll get in the pockets a little bit and knock down shots.”

Tavion Banks had 12 points and Cam Manyawu added 10 for Iowa. Darius Adams led Maryland with 14 points.

Now the Hawkeyes get the Buckeyes, and it didn’t take long for Stirtz to recall how the lone matchup between the two teams went this season, when Iowa went down 14-2 in the opening five minutes before rallying for a 74-57 win.

“We got down 14-2 at our place, and that can’t happen again, especially in the conference tournament,” Stirtz said. “So we’ve got to be ready to go.”

Photo: Iowa’s Bennett Stirtz (left) congratulates Cooper Koch as Cam Manyawu celebrates during the Hawkeyes’ win over Maryland in Wednesday’s Big Ten Tournament second-round win. (Stephen Mally/UI Athletic Communications)