IOWA CITY — Ben McCollum has won. A lot.

In 15 seasons as the head coach at Division II Northwest Missouri State, McCollum tallied an overall record of 394–91 (.812). He helped lead Northwest Missouri State to four Division II national titles in his 15 seasons at the helm.

And McCollum has continued to win at Drake.

This is his first season with the Bulldogs. After the departure of coach Darian DeVries to West Virginia, McCollum hasn’t missed a step. At 30-3 overall, Drake won both the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament championships and is in the NCAA Tournament, which begins this week.

After moving on from longtime head coach Fran McCaffery, Iowa is searching for a new leader of the men’s basketball program for the first time in 15 years. DeVries, now at West Virginia, is a potential candidate for the opening. But McCollum’s resume also makes a compelling case.

Like DeVries, McCollum has ties to the state of Iowa. McCollum was born in Iowa City and raised in Storm Lake. He started his playing career at North Iowa Area Community College. McCollum has now returned to the state as the head coach at Drake.

Coaches need to wear a variety of hats in the modern landscape of college athletics, whether that be recruiting, fundraising, roster-building and understanding the X’s and O’s. But above all, the most important part of the job is the ability to win. That can open the doors for just about everything else.

That is what makes McCollum such an appealing possibility: He is a bona fide winner.

Northwest Missouri State won at least 21 games in each of his last 13 seasons with the Bearcats, including a perfect 38-0 during the 2018–19 campaign. His 30 wins at Drake this season proved he can do it at the Division I level.

At a place like Iowa, which has fewer resources than some of its Big Ten counterparts, the ability to win should be a coveted characteristic.

McCollum, who turns 44 in April, is still young in the coaching world. This means that if he is successful, it wouldn’t be difficult to see him carrying a single program for at least the next decade.

McCollum brings a style of play that would look different from what Iowa fans have been used to under McCaffery. Drake has the lowest adjusted tempo in Division I this season, according to KenPom. The Bulldogs are averaging 70.1 points per game this season, in comparison to Iowa’s 82.5.

This isn’t to say that McCollum hasn’t had higher-scoring teams. His 38-0 squad at Northwest Missouri State averaged 82.4 points per game. The Bearcats topped that the next season at 83.2. But it would likely be a more deliberate pace than under McCaffery.

The thing is, that matters little if it leads to wins and championships. Virginia basketball under Tony Bennett was like watching paint dry at times. But he won a national title. If it works, there will be few complaints.

There is basically one major hole in McCollum's resume. He has been a head coach at the Division I level for just one season. He has never been at a power conference program. That is where he differentiates from someone like DeVries or Mississippi State’s Chris Jans.

Though this is only DeVries’ first season as a power conference head coach, it's his seventh at the Division I level and he has made the NCAA Tournament three times. This is Jans’ ninth season as a Division I head coach and he has made each of the last four NCAA Tournaments — between his final year at New Mexico State and the last three at Mississippi State (including the current season).

McCollum proved his winning ways translate from Division II to Division I, but would it also translate from mid-major to high-major?

On paper, McCollum looks like a higher-risk, higher-reward option compared to someone like DeVries. McCollum could very well be college basketball's next mastermind. He could also end up falling flat at a higher-profile job, where there are more hoops to jump to be successful.

The other wild card in the equation is that McCollum could be a hot commodity in this season’s coaching carousel. Last week, Jeff Goodman reported that McCollum emerged as one of the top candidates for the Indiana head coach opening.

In other words, even if Iowa decided McCollum is the right candidate, there’s no guarantee that the school would even be able to get him.

McCollum checks a lot of boxes — but not all of them. It will be interesting to see how this process unfolds as athletics director Beth Goetz looks to fill the vacancy.