As he shared on HawkCast Thursday, Drake transfer and Iowa commit, Bennett Stirtz has made the decision to forego the 2025 NBA Draft process. Premium subscribers were informed of Stirtz's decision prior to the release of the podcast on Thursday morning.
"I made the decision three days ago that I'm not going to [go through the process]," Stirtz shared. "I've been talking to a lot of agents -- they said you've got to go through it all in. You've got to be all in on the process. I want to be all in on Iowa, so I decided not to."
Stirtz's decision comes as a bit of a surprise after he shared his initial plans to enter the pre-draft process less than a day after he committed to Iowa.
"There's obviously a chance of officially declaring if it's the first round or anything like that," Stirtz told Hawkeye Beacon last week. "I'd say the number right now is probably 95% sure that I'm coming back to college. I'm going with the intent of coming back."
Several major outlets also considered Stirtz to be one of the top 30 players in this class. Kevin O'Connor of Yahoo! Sports ranked the Liberty, Missouri native as the 20th best prospect in the 2025 draft class, sharing the following sentiment:
Stirtz is a savvy shot-creator with high-level feel who carried Drake like a one-man band, showing the playmaking and shooting touch to fit into a modern offense. If he adjusts to the physicality and speed of the NBA, he could thrive as both a floor general or off-ball connector.
After jumping from Division II to one of the better mid-major leagues in the country in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC), Stirtz led the Bulldogs in points (19.2), assists (5.6), steals (2.1) and minutes (39.4) per game en route to earning AP Honorable Mention All-American status and being named the MVC Player of the Year.
Stirtz, who chose to go to Iowa as opposed to taking incredibly lucrative NIL deals elsewhere, cited his own happiness as a reason for following Ben McCollum to Iowa City. He did the same when making his decision to pass on the NBA Draft process this year.
"I don't think going and training in LA or Chicago, that I'd be happy," Stirtz said. "I think I'm physically ready to go, just not mentally. I decided to pull out of that and get ready for Iowa -- be all in."
