Gabe Olaseni picks Iowa, Eric Katenda picks Notre Dame
Iowa basketball coach Fran McCaffery finished 1-for-2 as a recruiter on Tuesday.
Kansas prep school center Gabe Olaseni picked Iowa, but his teammate, forward Eric Katenda, selected Notre Dame over Iowa and Wake Forest.
They both announced their decision during a ceremony Tuesday afternoon at Sunrise Christian Academy in Bel Aire, Kan., where each played this past season.
The 6-foot-10 Olaseni, who is from London, England, also had been considering Oklahoma and an undisclosed school that many believed was Wichita State.
He picked Iowa for a number of reasons.
“The coaching staff, the city, the fans, the facilities, the (Big Ten) conference, pretty much everything was a deciding factor,” Olaseni said Tuesday afternoon.
Olaseni thinks he can help Iowa on both ends of the floor.
“Just blocking shots and altering shots and rebounding and rebounding on the offensive boards and running the floor as well,” he said. “I think my defense will help them, absolutely.”
Recruiting analyst Van Coleman also thinks Olaseni could make an immediate impact for Iowa on defense, especially while teamed with sophomore-to-be forward Melsahn Basabe.
“His length and his ability to block shots at the back end of their pressure and at the back end of their half-court defense is going to give them another dimension to go with Basabe where all of the sudden they’ve become a team, even when the perimeter guys get beat, that there is no gimme baskets,” Coleman said of Olaseni.
Coleman compared Olaseni to former Iowa center Kurt Looby as a defender, but Coleman feels Olaseni is better on offense at this stage.
“The one thing he has that I think puts him ahead of Kurt coming in is that he’s a guy that scores with that little short jumper or with the jump hook around the basket,” Coleman said of Olaseni. “He’s really worked hard this year to become more a threat with the basketball on the blocks.”
Olesani has only been playing organized basketball for four years and his coach at Sunrise Christian Academy believes he is just tapping his potential.
“To be able to make that jump to play in the Big Ten in four years, you know he’s a heck of an athlete,” Sunrise Christian coach Kyle Lindsted said. “Some of the teams that came into our gym, when they saw him run they were just like he could play basketball for us or he could run track for us.”
Lindsted said Wichita State had been recruiting Olaseni, but it never got to the serious stage.
“They were there, they saw him a lot, but they understood that his recruitment was pretty far down the line when they stepped in,” Lindsted said of the Wichita State coaches. “So it’s not fair to throw them in as one of those schools.”
Lindsted said Auburn and Mississippi also were in the mix for a while.
“Those were schools that were on him all year and he could’ve visited if he wanted to,” Lindsted said.
Olaseni visited Oklahoma; however, Lindsted said the coaching change at Oklahoma, where Lon Kruger replaced Jeff Capel, affected the relationship.
“The whole deal with Capel leaving really threw a wrench in the OU thing,” Lindsted said.
Olaseni said he and Katenda talked about playing together in college, but they ultimately did what they felt was best for them.
“We talked a bit about it during the year,” Olaseni said. “But during the year I think that we just concentrated on ourselves.”
Olaseni is the second player to sign with Iowa in the last three days, joining 6-5 junior-college forward/guard Anthony Hubbard, who signed a letter of intent with the Hawkeyes this past Saturday.
Iowa now has four players in the incoming recruiting class with high school seniors Josh Oglesby, a 6-5 shooting guard from Cedar Rapids, and Aaron White, a 6-8 forward from Strongsville, Ohio, having signed in November.
McCaffery still has one more scholarship he could use this spring. But he said Monday that he likely would hold the scholarship for the 2012 class unless the right situation presented itself.
Category: Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball
Wow, if this is the type of recruits Franny and his staff will be bringing in then I won’t have to ever worry about Iowa beating Iowa State. This is great news for us Cyclone fans. Thank you Fran!
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Please explain yourself and your degenerate thoughts. Cylcone fans would be embarrased to know you are representing them the way you are. I know you don’t speak for all of them since I know many Cyclones and none of them would be stupid enough to say the things you do. Nor do any of them care enough to troll on other message boards….. heck, they don’t even read about the cyclones let alone the Hawkeyes. I’m embarrased to know that you’re from the same state as I am. You talk like an Ohio State fan….. and your teams are no where near the caliber.. Get a life.
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Nice to see a couple of guys commit. It’s still a little perplexing exactly why the Glover visit was cancelled. Obviously, we haven’t signed a PG, and have a scholarship left, so there has to be more to the story. We may have to assign a bodyguard to Cartwright for the next year to keep him healthy.
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