STEINMEYER: A coach’s perspective on Ben McCollum

Gene Steinmeyer

As you might remember, I was the Northwest Missouri State women’s coach until I retired in 2012. That included the first three years of Ben McCollum’s time at Northwest.

Ben is known for his very patient, but very efficient offense. I had a ringside seat to witness the birth of that offense.

At Ben’s press conference when he was announced as the Northwest coach in 2009, he said he wanted to speed the team up. Steve Tappmeyer played a patient offense but didn’t run and gun very often. Tapp also was the absolute best defensive coach I have ever been around. I was around a long time. His practices were better than most basketball clinics I sometimes attended.

Ben’s idea of speeding the game up didn’t help much his first two seasons. They were both below .500. Then in his third season, the patient offense began. Ben may never admit this, but like all good head coaches, he learned from his players. He had a point guard named DeShaun Cooper. He was a freshman during Ben’s first year. In year three, I could hear Ben begging DeShaun to push the ball up-court. DeShaun had other ideas and walked it up most of the time. With a lot of ball screens and really good 3-point shooters, Ben’s career started to skyrocket.

DeShaun scored 1,700 career points, which is good for a point guard. Then came Justin Pitts and the national championships started to happen. Not by running and gunning, but by a patient but effective offense, led by Pitts. When Pitts graduated, he had scored 2,459 career points. That’s second-best in school history.

Everyone thought that the point guard play had run out for Northwest but along comes an unknown freshman by the name of Trevor Hudgins. The offense created when Pitts decided not to run and gun was becoming nationally known. Trevor scored 2,829 career points. He almost single-handily beat Duke in an exhibition game. Trevor played a few games with the Houston Rockets.

Of course, Ben refined the offense. The team still averaged over 80 points per game, but Trevor was never in a hurry. Also, Ben had the team play insane defense, a defense ha had learned under Steve Tappmeyer.

Now, there is Bennett Stirtz. When Ben has an All-American point guard, he is almost impossible to stop, even at Division 1. My point is Ben McCullum is a great coach. All great coaches need to have roots at the beginning. DeShaun Cooper and Steve Tappmeyer’s fingerprints are all over Ben McCollum.