Stirtz scores career-high 32, Iowa beats Oregon 84-66 to extends Ducks’ skid to 8 games

Iowa guard Bennett Stirtz (14) goes up for the shot against Oregon in the second half of an NCAA college basketball game, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Boyd)

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Bennett Stirtz scored a career-high 32 points on 12-of-15 shooting and had seven assists on Sunday night to help Iowa beat short-handed Oregon 84-66 for its fourth win in a row.

Oregon (8-14, 1-10) has lost eight straight — its last seven by an average of 16.9 points — and nine of its last 11.

Alvaro Folgueiras added 15 points and eight rebounds, Brendan Hausen scored 11 and Cooper Koch 10 for Iowa (16-5, 6-4 Big Ten). The Hawkeyes shot 59% (33 of 56) from the field, hit 10 of 22 (44%) from 3-point range and committed a season-low five turnovers.

Kwame Evans Jr. sandwiched a pair of three-point plays around a dunk by Dezdrick Lindsay as Oregon scored eight of the first 12 second-half points to trim its deficit to five points with 16:38 left in the game. Stirtz scored 13 points in the next five-plus minutes before Koch scored in the lane to make it 59-43 with 10:23 remaining and Iowa led by at least nine the rest of the way.

Evans had 18 points on 6-of-14 shooting, 1 of 7 from behind the arc, for the Ducks. Takai Simpkins, who missed Wednesday’s 73-57 loss to UCLA due to an ankle injury, scored 16 points and Lindsay added 10.

The Ducks were without Jackson Shelstad, Nate Bittle, Ege Demir and Devon Pryor due to various injuries. Drew Carter, a senior walk-on, made his first career start. The 6-foot-3 guard, in his second season with Oregon, played football at Colorado in 2022 and then transferred to Northern Colorado, where scored 11 points in nine appearance in the 2023-24 season.

HEAR FROM HEAD COACH BEN MCCOLLUM
“I thought they did a great job. Defensively we were really engaged and then particularly offensively, we’ve been working on it for quite a few games, just being able to get more drives that are away from a ball screen. I thought we’ve been pretty ball screen dependent, which is what we do, but we have to punish things away from the actual pick-and-roll, too. We did much better tonight of doing that. We’re still a long ways away and are a major work in progress, but I was really pleased with it.”

IOWA GAME NOTES

The Hawkeyes pushed their winning streak to four games with an 84-66 victory over Oregon on Sunday night at Matthew Knight Arena. It was the team’s first ever win in Eugene.
Iowa has won four straight games in Big Ten play for the first time since the 2022-23 season.
The 16-5 record is the team’s best through 21 games since the 2018-19 season.
The victory is the team’s second straight true road win after starting the season with four straight losses.
Four Hawkeyes reached double figures: Bennett Stirtz (32), Alvaro Folgueiras (15), Brendan Hausen (11), Cooper Koch (10)
Stirtz had a career-high 32 points, making 12-of-15 field goals, 4-of-6 3-pointers and all four free throws. He also had seven assists and two steals without committing a turnover (his seventh such game this season).
- Stirtz, who scored 15 points in the first nine minutes of the second half, hit the 30-point mark for the third time in his career. His 12 field goals were also a career high.
- Stirtz’s 32 points are the most by a Hawkeye since Tony Perkins (32 vs. Illinois) on Feb. 4, 2023.
- He is the first Iowa player to have 30+ points, 5+ assists and zero turnovers since Jordan Bohannon at Maryland (2/10/22). He is the first player in the StatHead era to have 30+ points, six assists and zero turnovers.
- It is the third time in Stirtz’s career that he has scored 20+ points in four consecutive games.
- Stirtz is the first Hawkeye since the 2023-24 season to score 20+ in four straight games (Tony Perkins, 1/24/24-2/24/24).
- Stirtz’s field goal at the 15:53 mark of the second half put him over the 2,000-point mark for his collegiate career. He is eighth among active scorers in collegiate basketball (all levels) with 2,020 points.
Folgueiras reached double figures for the second straight game and for the 10th time this season. He also had a team-high eight rebounds, tying a season-high.
- Iowa is 10-0 when Folgueiras scores in double digits.
Koch scored in double figures for the first time since Jan. 11. He made three 3-point field goals.
Hausen reached double digits for the third time this season (first since Dec. 14). He went 4-of-7 from the floor with three 3-point field goals.
Iowa shot 58.9 percent from the field, including 69.2 percent (18-of-26) in its 49-point second half. Iowa scored 1.474 points per possession in the game.
The Hawkeyes made at least 10 3-pointers for the sixth time this season.
Iowa’s defense didn’t allow a fastbreak point for the second time this season. Oregon’s 66 points were six points below its season average.
- The Hawkeyes have held every opponent under its season scoring average.
Iowa trailed 17-15 at the 12:15 mark of the first half before using a 17-4 run over an eight-minute stretch to open a 32-21 lead. Stirtz had three 3-pointers during the stretch.