HOUSTON — Ben McCollum was furious. Saliva sat on the edge of his lip, but he didn’t wipe it off. He was midtirade, and his Iowa team was down 10 points to Nebraska early in Thursday’s Sweet 16 meeting.

Next to him stood Bennett Stirtz, the Hawkeyes’ stoic star who had seen multiple McCollum outbursts. Stirtz wasn’t fazed.

“He slammed his whiteboard and broke his marker on the hardwood floor. Ink everywhere,” Stirtz said after Iowa’s come-from-behind win over Nebraska. “That’s what he likes to do. He’s the negative guy, and then our assistant coaches are the positive people. He was just telling us we sucked and we were soft.”

McCollum had a different interpretation of that pivotal moment against the Cornhuskers.

“They were moving and cutting, and I didn’t even know what was going on. So … we called [the team] into the huddle and just said very nicely, ‘I would like you to play harder, guys,'” McCollum said. “And it seemed to work. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that how that went?'”

Stirtz nodded his head.

“Yes,” he responded.

McCollum is admittedly demonstrative. Look no further than last Sunday’s near clash with Florida coach Todd Golden during Iowa’s upset of the No. 1 seed in the Round of 32.

Stirtz is the opposite. He’s perpetually cool.

That fire-and-ice pairing of McCollum and Stirtz — who are at their third school together, following stints at Division II Northwest Missouri State (2022-24) and Drake (2024-25) — has fueled Iowa’s surprise run to the Elite Eight. The Hawkeyes went just 10-10 in the Big Ten, yet are on the brink of their first Final Four appearance since 1980. It’s the fourth time in four years that McCollum and Stirtz have advanced in an NCAA tournament together. It’s also the furthest they’ve advanced at any level.

First, they made it to the second round of the 2023 Division II NCAA tournament, where Stirtz scored seven points in a loss to Southern Nazarene. A year after that, they reached the Division II Sweet 16, where Stirtz scored 12 points against Minnesota State before losing to the eventual national champion on a buzzer-beater. And after making the Division I jump to Drake last season, they won a first-round game as Stirtz carried the 11-seeded Bulldogs to a first-round upset of a 6-seeded Missouri with 20 points before running into an Elite Eight-bound Texas Tech in the second round.

There was no surprise when Stritz followed McCollum to Iowa — or when the 2024-25 Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year continued to thrive in McCollum’s system. The senior guard earned second-team All-Big Ten honors after finishing fifth in the conference in scoring (19.7 PPG) but has saved his best for the NCAA tournament. His 3-pointer with 2:10 to play in Thursday’s win over Nebraska gave Iowa its first lead of the game. The Hawkeyes never trailed again, closing out the win to set up Saturday’s matchup against Illinois (6:09 p.m. ET).

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Bennett Stirtz gives Iowa a lead with a 3

Bennett Stirtz knocks down a huge 3-pointer for the Hawkeyes.

“You see him on the floor, and then you see me on the sideline — so polar opposites in personalities. Not polar opposites in value,” McCollum said. “He’s super competitive. I’m super competitive. I feel like he works with a level of humility. I feel like he’s a really tough kid. I feel like he serves others, all those different things.”

Added Stirtz: “He shoots it straight. Even when it’s tough and even when it’s hard. He pushes you past your limit, and I think that’s where the trust comes in … he just pushes everyone on this team, and honestly, you can see the benefit from that.”

Minnesota State head coach Matt Margenthaler isn’t shocked by the duo’s success this March. He still has nightmares about Stirtz and McCollum’s Northwest Missouri State squad nearly derailing his team’s Division II championship run in 2023.

Their rise, Margenthaler argues, is a beacon for Division II basketball — proof that players and coaches at that level can be stars at the next, too.

“You always question, I think, when you go up a level, ‘Can he do it at that next level in the Missouri Valley Conference?’ And then he proved that in one year,” Margenthaler told ESPN. “And then, ‘Can he do it again in the Big Ten?’ And then he just continues to amaze the coaching world with what he can do.”

“[Stirtz’s] confidence has grown and grown and grown,” Margenthaler said. “He is obviously a Division I basketball player, but one that has made himself better each year. I mean, what a story: those two guys together and what they’re doing.”

And if you ask McCollum and Stirtz, they’re not done yet.

“In 20 years, it will be an insane story. A guy that goes from Division II with his coach and then goes to Drake and then goes to the University of Iowa and actually makes it farther in the tournament in Division I than he did in Division II,” McCollum said. “I think when you’re a player-coach [relationship] sometimes, you obviously care for each other and love each other and all of that, but you don’t get to connect on [this] kind of level. But it’s been a hell of a ride, but it’s far from over.”

The New England Patriots were supposed to be “mid,” as Rob Gronkowski told Fox News Digital, but instead, they looked like the Pats of yesteryear.

New England stunned the football world with a 14-3 record and going all the way to the Super Bowl, led by second-year quarterback Drake Maye.

Sure, New England perhaps benefited from an easy schedule in the regular season, and in the playoffs, they faced Jarrett Stidham instead of Bo Nix. The Super Bowl was not pretty, as they took a beating from the Seattle Seahawks.

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But Gronkowski and one of his former teammates do not believe the 2025 Pats were any sort of fluke.

“What the New England Patriots did this season was incredible. And they’re just going to keep on building on that from here on and going into next year, I’m sure they’re going to be making the playoffs on a consistent basis now,” Gronk told Fox News Digital. “That’s the expectation. They got the quarterback, they got the coach, they got the ownership, they got the foundation now, and you’re going to see them competing at a high level every single year now, which is great for Patriot fans.”

New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye (10) warms up prior to the AFC Championship NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in Denver.  (AP Photo/Ashley Landis)

The Patriots have simply built the next generation of success, and Gronkowski sees the same in Infiniti and their newly-released QX65. Gronk and Julian Edelman were on hand at Grand Central Terminal in New York for the unveiling.

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“I’ve always been about showing up at big moments and putting in the work behind the scenes, and that’s what stood out to me with the Infiniti. They’re really being intentional about how they move forward and what they’re building next. That’s how you got to be as a football player, as an athlete, you got to be very intentional and in order to stay at the top of your game and be able to compete at a top level. And that’s what Infiniti is doing.”

“I was fortunate enough in my career to play in a lot of big moments, and that’s exactly what you see with the Infiniti,” Edelman added. “How they are so detailed and have a purpose for everything that they do. When you look at the design of the car, the back, the interior’s spacious, very detailed. I mean, it’s just something that’s been so cool. It’s been a fun experience.”

Edelman, too, is “very confident” that the new-look Pats are here to stay.

“Anytime you got a head coach, a quarterback, an owner, and a GM working together and unison, it seems like every free agent they signed had a big moment, big role on the team. There was a lot of great things that happened.”

Edelman did warn Patriots fans to temper expectations just a bit and not expect another 14-win season. However, he does expect a more sound product on the field.

New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye celebrates with the AFC championship trophy after the AFC championship game between the Denver Broncos and the New England Patriots in Denver, Colorado, on Jan. 25, 2026. (AP Photo/John Locher)

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“it’s time on task. You know, time on task with the quarterback. Get him ready with the offensive line, getting that offensive line kind of fixed up and get them working together more. I mean, they’re a young group. So I’m really excited for the Patriots this year,” he said.

“I think they’re for real. They may go out and not have as many wins, but I think they’re going to be a better football team this year.”

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Perhaps for the first time in 2026, Alex Vesia felt some normalcy on Friday night.

The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher made his return to the pitcher’s mound in his first Major League outing since his infant daughter died just five days after she was born.

Before the World Series, the left-hander left the team to deal with a “deeply personal matter” and did not pitch in the Fall Classic. 

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Days after the Dodgers won the World Series, he and his wife announced their infant daughter had died.

Vesia returned to the team during spring training and then entered the Dodgers’ game against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the seventh inning of a 4-4 tie.

It was quite the spot for Vesia to return, but given his 2.36 ERA over the last two seasons, it was no sweat. He left a runner stranded on second base and kept the D-Backs scoreless en route to the team’s 5-4 win over their division rival.

Vesia let out a yell and pointed toward the Dodgers’ family section while getting a standing ovation from the crowd.

Vesia was wearing a customized pink glove with his daughter’s name, Sterling Sol, stitched on it, along with her birthday and his wife’s first initial, K for Kayla, embroidered on the glove’s ring finger.

Alex Vesia of the Los Angeles Dodgers pitches against the Arizona Diamondbacks during the sixth inning at Dodger Stadium on March 27, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. (Luke Hales/Getty Images)

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“What I would give to have my Sterling girl here, carrying her in my heart always,” Kayla said in an Instagram post earlier this week to celebrate a “bitter-sweet” opening day.

Sterling passed between Game 2 and Game 3 when the series was tied at one game apiece. During the Fall Classic, relievers from the Toronto Blue Jays wrote Vesia’s jersey number, 51, on their hats.

In his first news conference of the year in spring training, Vesia called his wife “the strongest person that I know” and “a support system for me every bit as much as I am for her.”

“Life can change in an instant. For us, 10 minutes is all it took,” Vesia said in February. “Sterling Sol was the most beautiful girl in the world. We got to hold her, change her diaper, read to her and love her. Our time together was far too short. Kay and I will keep those precious moments and memories to ourselves.

“Stepping away from the team, the brothers that I go to war with every day, was difficult, but it was also an easy decision because my family needed me. We still watched every pitch of the World Series, and for us in so many ways, that was a light in our darkness.

Alex Vesia of the Los Angeles Dodgers thanks the crowd during the 2025 Back-to-Back World Champions Ring Ceremony prior to the game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Los Angeles Dodgers at UNIQLO Field at Dodger Stadium on Friday, March 27, 2026, in Los Angeles, California.  (Jessie Alcheh/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

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“I was not prepared to not bring my baby girl home, but we’re carrying her with us every day. It’s been hard, but we’re doing OK.”

The back-to-back reigning World Series champions are 2-0 to start the MLB season.

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