Yesterday was an interesting day to say the least regarding Iowa State basketball recruiting. We went from being 100% sure that Anthony Tucker was going to join the Cyclones in 2012, to that not being the case. Later that day, it was announced the Cyclones lost one of their signed players for 2012, Anthony Odunsi, a 3 star freshmen from Fort Bend, TX. We had a two player swing in the matter of a few hours here.
Chris Williams from Cyclonefanatic stated the reason was due to playing time. It just seems like Iowa State can't win with some of these freshmen, though.
Under McDermott, we recruited mostly kids who weren't good enough to play Big 12 caliber ball. They played a lot, but were unhappy either due to losing, them not performing well, or any other reason why an 18 or 19 year old may be upset, and ended up leaving the program. Progression did not really happen, as the program was always in rebuilding mode.
Now, we're bringing in guys who might be pretty good, and freshmen don't want to wait to start for a year or so. I know it's different staffs and other things, but it just seems like when we bring in freshmen who need time to develop, they want to play right away. If we bring in guys who play right away, they get frustrated from the lack of results. It seems like kids want to play a lot, win, and go to the NBA, but those aren't realistic aspirations for the majority of guys who play college basketball.
From the outside, it just sounds very difficult to keep people happy these days. All I hope is that these transfers tear it up and start winning, so the staff can recruit the type of freshmen who can contribute right away and do an alright job in the Big 12.
With Odunsi now leaving, that leaves 2 open scholarships for 2012 if the staff want to take a couple of fliers on a JUCO or a late bloomer in high school. With having 9 guys who can likely contribute next year (plus Bubu and Railey), I don't think there needs to be a rush to fill these. You are only going to use 8 guys in a rotation most likely. I'd rather the staff look out for more quality recruits in 2012 and beyond. The key contributors for 2012 are in place, it is time to start spending some of those resources on building the program.
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