IOWA CITY —
Iowa basketball begins its team weight room sessions with a specific routine.
This was something new to director of men’s basketball athletic performance Logan Ogden, who came to Iowa this offseason with more than a decade of experience in the field. But Ogden has become fond of the custom implemented by Iowa coach Ben McCollum.
Players enter the weight room by running and yelling.
“I really like it,” Ogden said. "It was really, really good because the guys have to come in ready to go, just like we’re playing a game. It's like, you don’t get the first five minutes to get in a groove. You’ve got to be ready to go when the ball’s tipped. And so that’s kind of coach’s philosophy with that … We’re going to start with a high level of enthusiasm as we go into the training session.”
But players running and yelling as they enter the weight room was not the only unfamiliar dynamic for Ogden as he transitioned to his new job at Iowa.
“One of coach (McCollum’s) deals is the whole staff’s in the weight room and that’s the first time I’ve experienced that, especially with their enthusiasm alone,” Ogden said. “Everywhere I’ve been, the coaches come in and watch the lift and stand off to the side and drink their coffee and whatnot. But our staff’s like cheering them on and being enthusiastic with them and motivating them. It was a lot of fun.”
McCollum, in his first offseason as Iowa’s head coach, has stressed the importance of strength and conditioning, an aspect of preparation that has been a staple in his programs. Iowa’s summer training block is now complete, and progress was made as the program builds a foundation for the future.
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“Normally, in the summer, I kind of would adjust training based off of training age,” Ogden said. “So older guys might be doing something that’s slightly different than my developmental group or my young guys or my freshmen or guys coming in for the first time. We all kind of just met in the middle.
“So it was a lot of them learning terminology and learning how I coach things and the techniques that I want them to use and kind of the standard that I’m upholding in those regards, along with building the culture and building the energy that coach (McCollum) wants, and that I want.”
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Ogden has experience specifically building basketball players, including his most recent job before coming to Iowa, where he served as the Utah men's basketball strength and conditioning coach. Even in the weight room, Ogden wants training to reflect the rhythm of the sport.
“It’s not run a play, stop, run a play, stop,” Ogden said. “It’s just constant chaos and so being able to train the guys within the correct energy system is really, really important. So, yes, we focus on strength and power. But in the weight room, we also run from station to station and our tempo is really, really high as we train. Versus, maybe potentially just doing a set, rest, doing a set, rest. We do some of that, especially when we’re in a big strength phase. But a lot of stuff is high-tempo, high-energy from station to station just so that we’re training the way we want to play.”
While Ogden said, “across the board, everybody did really, really well,” during the summer training, he also named a handful of standouts: Trevin Jirak, Tate Sage, Cooper Koch, Cam Manyawu and Bennett Stirtz.
Jirak and Sage are two of the members of Iowa’s freshman class. It is typical, Ogden said, for freshmen to make significant strides in their first summer of training.
Jirak, the reigning Iowa Mr. Basketball, has a frame unique to anyone else on the Hawkeyes’ current roster, standing around 6-foot-11, with the potential to be a legitimate physical presence, which is of importance in the Big Ten.
“He’s still got a ways to go but he made some really good improvements,” Ogden said of Jirak. “He actually lost weight this summer but his strength went up. If that tells you anything. Where most of our guys kind of gained weight throughout the summer, which is what we were trying to accomplish. In general, he needs to move a lot better and so strength’s going to help him move better.”
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Stirtz, one of the six transfers to follow McCollum from Drake to Iowa, was the Hawkeyes’ highest-profile addition ahead of the 2025-26 season. Already projected as a first-round pick in the 2026 NBA Draft, Stirtz has continued to take steps forward this offseason.
“Bennett made huge improvements in terms of changing his body and strength,” Ogden said.
Ogden added: "For being an older guy, that’s harder to do. The older you get, it’s harder to meet those milestones. When you’re younger, you start eating better and training more consistently and all the sudden you’re getting better every single week, getting stronger every single week. But when you’re older, it’s a little more difficult, and so for him to do that was really impressive.”
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One of the few holdovers from the Fran McCaffery era is redshirt freshman Cooper Koch. The former four-star recruit appeared in only 10 games last season due to a medical issue, but is back in action now and still has plenty of time to develop at Iowa.
“Coming from the old staff to this staff, just the way he adapted and embraced everything was really, really awesome,” Ogden said of Koch. “He saw really, really good improvements, too. Strength, power, speed, changed his body."
It has been a memorable offseason for Ogden, who is still just in his first few months on the job after being officially hired in May.
"This has probably been one of my funnest summers I've had in a long time and in my career," Ogden said. "I think a lot of that goes back to coach (McCollum's) culture and how he wants to do things. It's just high energy and everybody's invested."
