Iowa head coach Ben McCollum embraces Alvaro Folgueiras after the team's upset win over Florida on Sunday during the second round of the NCAA college basketball tournament in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

Upsets happen all the time in sports — especially this time of year. March Madness is so captivating and endearing because of its imperfections and unpredictability.

The Iowa men’s basketball team jumped to the front of the 2026 highlight reel on Sunday, knocking off top seed and defending national champion Florida less than two hours from the Gators’ home arena. Head coach Ben McCollum’s Hawkeyes were a 10-point underdog, and became just the ninth No. 9 seed to topple a No. 1 in the modern-day history of the tournament — dating back nearly 50 years.

To casual fans, this will go down as a surprising result that defies logic. Iowa hadn’t been to the Sweet 16 since 1999 — an almost-impossible drought, given the Hawks won 19 or more games 15 different times during that stretch, had 10 NCAA Tournament appearances, and were seeded fifth or better on three separate occasions.

Iowa parted ways with long-time coach Fran McCaffery after last season. McCaffery won nearly 300 games at a 60 percent clip in his 15 years at the helm, yet the Hawkeyes were never able to get to the second weekend of the Big Dance — even with All-Americans like Luka Garza and Keegan Murray leading the way.

Enter Ben McCollum. The often-overlooked lower-level legend cobbled together a revamped roster in Year 1 and managed to do what Steve Alford, Todd Lickliter and McCaffery couldn’t for almost three decades combined. This, despite having significantly less talent on paper than many of the program’s predecessors.

How? Pretty simple: good coaching.

We just had a conversation in this space a few months ago with a very similar tone. Curt Cignetti took a perennial doormat at Indiana and turned the Hoosiers into the unlikeliest of college football national champions.

There are some glaring similarities and parallels here: years of winning at the Div. II level without a call from the big boys; success being not just an expectation but a habit in their systems; and a quiet confidence, almost as if both McCollum and Cignetti know something the rest of the world doesn’t.

Many coaches surround themselves with elite talent and reap the rewards of their recruiting prowess. It’s a skill, no doubt; pushing the right buttons and constructing a roster that works well together, while also relieving some of the pressure to make the whole greater than the sum of its parts.

McCollum isn’t necessarily the polar opposite of that, but all of his strengths — preparation, execution, keeping his athletes physically and mentally sharp to perform beyond what their ability level may look like on the surface — play particularly well in a one-and-done tournament setting. He is now an incredible 37-8 all-time in NCAA Div. I and II Tournament games.

Florida’s Todd Golden, for instance, still doesn’t know what hit him on Sunday. Less than 365 days ago, he was celebrating a national title as the toast of the town in Gainesville. Now, he’s left to question everything about his actual coaching ability after being spun in circles by McCollum — again, a similar pattern to the before and after of facing Cignetti.

Iowa has the cursory look of a plucky underdog. Bennett Stirtz is a future pro, but most of the other Hawkeye players wouldn’t really register on the recruiting radar of any remaining Sweet 16 programs. Even Stirtz was a widely-ignored prospect before joining McCollum at Northwest Missouri State, then following him to Drake and Iowa. Look at him now.

There is a pattern. The Hawkeyes like to lull you to sleep with their tempo — their adjusted pace ranks 361st out of 365 teams in Division I — then frustrate you into submission with precise, deliberate half-court sets. They’re in your face defensively. They quietly rank in the Top-30 nationally for both adjusted offense and defense, and are 22nd in Ken Pomeroy’s overall national rankings (Iowa had been 41st, 57th and 62nd the previous three years).

More than anything statistically, McCollum loves to craft a group that works together and with an edge. He said about his program recently, “If you’re a tough dude, this (Iowa) is a good spot for you. If you like yourself way too much, this is probably not the spot for you.”

In a world littered with me-first coaches and athletes, this certainly won’t resonate with everyone. When it does, though, McCollum is likely to land a kid who just plain gets it and will go the extra mile — and then some — for his teammates and his program.

That can lead to a dangerous player suiting up for a dangerous coach for a matchup that seems innocent enough. Just ask Florida.

Iowa didn’t win on a whim on Sunday; if anything, the Hawks actually were far from their best. Stirtz missed all nine of his three-point attempts. The team was under 30 percent from behind the arc. The Gators shot 50 percent from the field and made six more free throws. McCollum’s squad failed to convert a number of clutch opportunities from the charity stripe.

Look at the effort stats, though. The Hawkeyes rank 165th nationally in rebounding. Florida is No. 1. Yet Iowa somehow fought to a 27-27 draw.

The Hawks, now a slight underdog to Fred Hoiberg’s Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Sweet 16, may very well bow out of the tournament this Thursday. If not, heavyweights Houston or Illinois could easily take them down in the South Region final on Saturday. Their margin for error is slim.

But are you willing to bet against them at this point? What if the upset we saw on Sunday wasn’t really that much of an upset after all?

We kept waiting for the other shoe to drop with Cignetti. He just got better and stronger with more support and another year of finding the right fits for the right spots in his program.

That should excite Hawkeye fans more than anything this week: win or lose, it might only get better from here.

What if this is just the beginning?

Eric Pratt is Sports Editor at The Messenger. Contact him via email at sports@messengernews.net, or on Twitter at @ByEricPratt