How To Watch, Game Preview and Game Thread: UCLA Bruins at Iowa Hawkeyes
The Bruins begin 2026 with a visit to Iowa.
Today, we have another men’s and women’s UCLA basketball doubleheader on deck. The men’s team is up first with a game against the Iowa Hawkeyes in Iowa City at 3 pm PT. The women who are ranked fourth in the nation will follow at 5 pm PT when the Bruins host crosstown rival #17 Southern Cal at Pauley Pavilion. Both games will air on NBC Sports Network (where available) and Peacock.
The men’s team returns to the hardwood after an 11-day break for the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. They last played on December 23rd against UC Riverside in a game which saw the Bruins defeat the Highlanders by 28 points.
In that game, Tyler Bilodeau scored 34 of UCLA’s 97 points. Three other Bruins finished in double figures. Both Skyy Clark and Trent Perry scored 14 points each while Eric Dailey, Jr. added 13 more.
Now that the calendar has flipped from 2025 to 2026, the Bruins are ready for the bulk of conference play. Between now and the end of the season, they will play 18 games against Big Ten opponents.
Ben McCollum was named Iowa’s new head coach at the end of March after guiding Drake to a 31-4 record in his only season with the school. Before joining Drake, he had spent 15 seasons coaching Northwest Missouri State where he won four Division II national championships and made the NCAA Division II men’s basketball tournament in 11 of his 15 seasons. Of course, one of the four seasons they didn’t play in the tournament was 2019-2020 when it was cancelled due to COVID. They would have made it that season had a tourney been played as the Bearcats finished the season with a 31-1 record.
So far this season, his Hawkeyes have defeated both Ole Miss as well as Maryland. At the same time, their two losses came against Michigan State and Iowa State.
Iowa Hawkeyes’ Starting Five
Unsurprisingly, four of Iowa’s five starters this year played last season at Drake under McCollum. McCollum will start a lineup with a pair of guards and three forwards. It’s slightly unconventional to start three forwards but it is pretty close to your typical two guards, two forwards and a center.
Iowa only has one player player averaging in double figures and that’s senior guard Bennett Stirtz. He’s averaging 17.1 ppg this year. He also leads the team in assists with 68. While he also leads the team in both three-pointers and three-point attempts, his 41.4% three-point percentage is only the fourth-best on the team.
The other starting guard will be junior Kael Combs. While Combs is only averaging 5.9 ppg, he is second on the team in assists with 40. It is a bit surprising to see that Combs is second among the starters in minutes per game considering that he doesn’t seem to standout in any other statistical category. Usually, when a player doesn’t stand out offensively, you’ll see that he contributes more defensively, but that isn’t the case with Combs.
Moving to the forwards, senior Tavion Banks is tied for second on the team in scoring with an average of 9.5 ppg. Now, he doesn’t shoot as much as Stirtz, but when he does, most of them go in. He is shooting 57.5% from the field. What’s worse is that he only has the third-best shooting percentage on the team. He is also second in rebounds with 4.4 rpg.
Junior Cam Manyawu is averaging 8.8 ppg and he leads the Hawkeyes with 4.6 rpg. At 6’ 9” tall, he is the team’s tallest starter, which means that it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he leads the team in blocks with ten. Additionally, his 64.3% shooting percentage is the best on the team, but, like Banks, he has taken fewer than half the shots which Stirtz has taken.
The only starter who didn’t play at Drake last season was redshirt freshman forward Cooper Koch. Koch is averaging 7.5 ppg and just 3.4 rpg.
Interestingly, McCollum seems to be playing a rotation that frequently includes five guys off the bench, which may compensate for some of the lack of scoring among the starters.
The first guy off the bench looks to be junior transfer Alvaro Folgueiras, who joined Iowa this year after playing two seasons at Robert Morris. Folgueiras, a forward originally from Spain, is tied with Banks for second in scoring with 9.5 ppg.
Another guy who will see significant time off the bench is sophomore transfer Isaia Howard. Howard is the only Drake transfer who isn’t a consistent starter, though he has started four games this season. He is averaging just 6.8 ppg.
True freshman Tate Sage, who is averaging 6.8 ppg, is probably the third Hawkeye off the bench for McCollum. Brendan Hausen and Trevin Jirak are the other reserves who have played in almost every game this year for Iowa.
Analysis
At first glance, it might be easy to dismiss Iowa because only one player on the team averages more than 9.5 ppg, but that would be short-sighted. Ten of the team’s twelve players are averaging at least 10 minutes per game.
What the Hawkeyes lack in terms of individual statistics, they make up for as a group. Overall, Iowa is averaging 81.2 ppg. By comparison, UCLA has four players averaging in double figures while the team is averaging 81.7 ppg. So, it looks like McCollum’s approach is simply a different way to skin a cat, and more importantly, it has worked well for the Hawkeyes so far this season.
This game is an important one for both teams. For Iowa, it’s time for them to put up or shut up. They have played a relatively weak schedule so far but they have done well. They won their last three games by a total of 123 points, but their opponents have been Western Michigan, Bucknell and UMass Lowell. For the Bruins, today’s game is important because it’s a conference road game and they need to win games like this in order to challenge for the conference title.
Today’s game will likely be a close one which will turn somewhere around midway through the second half. The real question is: “Will the Bruins be able to hold off the Hawkeyes?”
Personally, I won’t be surprised if UCLA wins or if they lose because this is a game which could go either way.
This is your UCLA men’s basketball vs. Iowa game thread. Here’s how to watch, listen and stream today’s game:
UCLA Men’s Basketball (10-3, 2-0)
Opponent: Iowa Hawkeyes (11-2, 1-1)
Series Record: UCLA trails, 4-5
When: 3:00 pm PT, Saturday, January 3, 2026
Where: Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Iowa City, IA
TV: NBC Sports Network (where available) with Paul Burmeister and Jess Settles
Live Stream: PeacockTV.com and the Peacock app
Radio/Audio
Local Radio: KABC AM 790 with Josh Lewin and Tracy Murray
Satellite Radio: SiriusXM Ch. 81 (UCLA Call)
Online: uclabruins.com
Live Stats: UCLA StatBroadcast
Game Notes:
UCLA
Go Bruins!!!
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There will be a separate game thread later for the women's game against $c.
Don't forget to switch your stream over to the women's game when the men are over as our Bruins are playing Southern Cal tonight.