A good write up in the Iowa City Press Citizen related to Iowa basketball recruiting can be found at this link.
There are some interesting aspects in it, especially where Van Coleman doesn’t identify some players Iowa is looking at. I know Van well, have worked with him for several years in the past on the radio and consider him a friend. I haven’t spoken with him about any of this, but my reading of the tea leaves is that the Iowa staff has been indoctrinated into the world of Hawkeye Recruiting Fanaticism.
From the item: “They’re like, `hey, we’re into recruiting guys. But people got them coming here before we’ve even got them on campus.’” Coleman said.
I suspect Siena fans were interested in recruiting, but there weren’t three large fansites where thousands of fans congregated each day to talk about every aspect of the program like there is in Iowa. Throw in the newspaper sites that cover the Hawks, and there isn’t much that goes unnoticed. It’s a new world for Fran McCaffery; that’s my guess.
I totally understand why coaches want to keep certain aspects of recruiting off the radar. Iowa’s football program has had to deal with this through the years. They identify a prospect early, and they don’t want people to know about it. However, that has become increasingly more difficult as Iowa has had more success developing players, as well as the change in football recruiting where players are offered far earlier in the process and therefore committing far earlier in the process. We wrote about that last week at this link.
McCaffery and Company are doing the best they can in the short amount of time they had in order to add players they think can help the program for the next few years. The Juco route seems to be the best route to take, as to not tie up scholarships for the 2012 class in the state of Iowa.
As I have said before, I am not sure what McCaffery can do to help the program avoid the battle for 8th, 9th or 10th place next year. It is what it is, but a different style of play will be a welcomed sight in Carver Hawkeye Arena, and it will bring new hope and optimism.
Rss