Updated Feb. 24, 2026, 12:57 p.m. CT
IOWA CITY — Despite still not having made his college debut, Trey Thompson has indeed experienced a welcome-to-the Big Ten moment.
Not long after joining the program, Thompson took an elbow from Iowa basketball teammate Alvaro Folgueiras.
“I was like, holy, that hurt really bad,” Thompson recalled. “It knocked my tooth loose over here but that’s all right.”
The play, like most of Thompson’s involvement this season, came outside of the public eye.
Thompson has not appeared through the first 27 games of Iowa’s season. The plan is for him to redshirt. This is a development year for the former four-star recruit. His game has improved in practice. And though he hasn’t gotten into game action, Thompson gets an intimate view of the Hawkeyes from the bench.
“I have the best seat in the house,” Thompson said on Feb. 24. “I’m front row and I get to see coach (Ben McCollum) live when he gets mad at our players. It’s not funny, but every now and then I do smile. I’m having a great time. He’s over here, getting so angry, his veins are popping out of his forehead. But he loves to win and I love to win and I love everything about it. So I have the best seat in the house. I get to watch the Hawks play live and my best friends out there. So I really do appreciate it.”
Thompson’s commitment to Iowa marked a win on the high school recruiting trail for McCollum and company, choosing the Hawkeyes over offers from big-name programs like Purdue, Kansas, UConn and his home-state Tennessee. The decision also included starting college early. Thompson, who was originally a member of the 2026 recruiting class, elected to forgo his senior year at Greeneville (Tenn.) High School and join the Hawkeyes over the summer.
“I wasn’t being pushed every day in high school and I think getting pushed every single day in practice here is just so much better for me,” Thompson said. “I’m getting better every day. I get to work out with the best assistant coaches in the country, in my opinion. They push me. They correct me. And then we have a little bit of fun every now and then, so it’s not too bad.”
Thompson was still 17 when he enrolled at Iowa. His 18th birthday came in December.
“There is no, ‘Mom, what’s for dinner?’” Thompson said of the transition to college life. “There is none of that. There is no, ‘Dad, will you take me to shoot?’ You’re on your own. I think that’s the main difference for me is I can do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted. I had to rely on myself for my clothes to be washed, my food to be given to me. That was a big transition for me. The school is probably the same as high school. But there’s a lot more freedom in college, for sure.”
At the time that Thompson signed with Iowa, it was McCollum’s expectation that the forward would play “considerable minutes” for the Hawkeyes this season. But early returns were that Thompson’s defense needed work.
“I think he could play from an offensive perspective immediately,” McCollum said. “He could’ve played from an emotional perspective, as well. He’s a very mature kid in regards to that stuff. Great energy, very conscientious person. I just think, when you play at a smaller school, and you’re bigger, you guard a lot of forwards. And so, you’re not aware, OK, at this level, you’re going to have to guard a four and sometimes a three that can really get downhill. So he ends up getting here, takes him a little time from the defensive perspective, wasn’t quite there — just defensively, but was always there offensively.”
And then, after the season began, Thompson faced a health-related hurdle. He came down with an illness that impacted him for 4-6 weeks.
“I was really sick for about four or five days,” Thompson said. “I couldn’t eat anything. I lost like 10 pounds. My throat was swollen. It was not fun at all. But after that, it was fine. I just felt tired all the time. It was just a pain, an inconvenience. Couldn’t go to class. So I had to catch up on all that stuff.”
The learning curve on the defensive end, coupled with Thompson’s health situation, made redshirting seem like the right decision.
“You’re like, OK, well, we don’t want to burn your year and have you play two minutes,” McCollum said. “From his perspective, he’s probably sitting there, well, I’d like to play two minutes, because he’s 17 years old. You’re like, yeah, but this isn’t smart. Most kids, especially how recruited he was, would have a tough time with that. And he probably did have a tough time with it. But most of them, their ego gets so bruised that they can’t understand the big picture and the long-term view. And he still may not understand it, but he did trust in what we were talking about. And then he got sick and then it was like, well, this works out pretty well.”
That has required some patience on Thompson’s part. The progress he has made behind the scenes will not show in games for a while.
“Getting sick for a month, month and a half, it wasn’t ideal,” Thompson said. “But I came here to get better and develop and that’s what I’m doing every day. The weight room pushes me, practice every single day pushes me and I’m very thankful for the opportunity to be here. Coach (McCollum) saw a vision in me and I think he still does. So I’m happy to be here. I love the Hawks.”
As McCollum tries to build this program for the future, there is hope that Thompson can be a foundational pillar along with Tate Sage, Cooper Koch, Trevin Jirak, Isaia Howard and class-of-2026 signee Ethan Harris. Thompson has added about 20 pounds to his frame since arriving on campus, making him more physically equipped for his talent to show through when the time comes.
“He’s even better than when I said this a month ago,” McCollum said. “He just keeps getting better, keeps understanding winning, keeps understanding the defensive side of things. I always say at this level, there’s certain guys, their ball goes in. His ball goes in. Like he finishes. He can shoot threes. He can do all those different things. And so, it was just a matter of catching up defensively.”
Follow Tyler Tachman on X @Tyler_T15, contact via email at ttachman@gannett.com