McCaffery’s recruiting class ranked No. 9 in Big Ten
Iowa men’s basketball coach Fran McCaffery has assembled the ninth best incoming recruiting class in the Big Ten Conference according to Rivals.com.
Ohio State’s four-player class is ranked first in the Big Ten and 10th nationally by Rivals.com. Illinois’ class is ranked second in the conference and 11th nationally followed by Michigan State, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Iowa.
Purdue, Penn State and Northwestern fill the bottom three spots in order.
Michigan State and Indiana also are ranked 19th and 26th, respectively, on the national level.
McCaffery will add four recruits to next season’s team, including 6-foot-5 small forward/shooting guard Anthony Hubbard, who was considered one of the top junior college players in the country as a sophomore this past season.
Iowa’s other recruits are 6-10 Kansas prep school center Gabe Olaseni, 6-8 forward Aaron White from Strongsville, Ohio and 6-5 shooting guard Josh Oglesby from Cedar Rapids.
The top signees at each position according to Rivals.com are Ohio State’s Shannon Scott at point guard, Michigan State’s Dwaun Anderson at shooting guard, Michigan State’s Branden Dawson at small forward, Indiana’s Cody Zeller at power forward and Ohio State’s Amir Williams at center.
As for which conferences recruited the best according to Rivals.com, the Big Ten is ranked sixth with four classes among the top 26 nationally.
The Southeastern Conference is ranked first with seven classes ranked in the top 30 led by Kentucky’s top-rated class nationally.
The Big East is ranked second followed by the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12 Conference, the Pacific-10 and the Big Ten.
Category: Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball
9th? out of 11 teams? wow. going to be a long season in Iowa City. I don’t think i want to know where they would stand nationally
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12, but nice try at the math.
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actually its out of 12 and he got a late start combined with the poor performance of the team under lickliter and all of the players that have left in the last four years this is prob the best he couldve done. based on last year’s performance and another potential strong showing this year recruiting should pick up and the team should get better. a point guard or three would be good though
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One year of positive media comments can change everything.
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This recruiting information does not surprise me.
Fran McCaffrey still has a lot to prove in terms
of his ability to recruit and sign top recruits.
Unless and until he is able to do this, I am afraid the Iowa Hawkeye basketball program will
continue to be below average in the Big Ten.
We could be looking for another coach in two or three years.
del09
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Do the names Melsahn Basabe or Bryce Cartwright ring a bell? Where were they “ranked” by the experts at this time last year?
Yup, Fran doesn’t know what he is doing & we should rely on rivals.com to tell us who will be good. Because, if you have 4 or 5 stars (see Millard, Russ; see Kingsbury, Chris) you’re a LOCK to be a Big 10 star.
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excellent comments
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Well, he’s up from 15th in the Big 10, which is where Lackluster’s classes were ranked. Guess we could keep him around another year, you know, just to see if he can coach them up a little better than Todd did his classes…..Whatever happens, I certainly don’t want to ignore these rankings by the “experts” – they are the foundation of college athletics!
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I’m not sure what everyone was expecting. To me, this was a solid recruiting class for Coach. The Hawks are coming off of three very down seasons. It wasn’t like he was going to start pulling in 4 and 5 star recruits right away.
But look at who the did manage to sign: A top 15 ranked JuCo transfer, a 6’10″ center (which is a huge area of need), an athletic 3-4 player in White, and a local shooter in Ogelsby. Three of the four will step in and help right away. I think it is more important to focus on players that can fit into the new system, rather than highly touted players, which will ineveitably come as wins come.
I tip my cap to the staff and look forward to what they can do in the future.
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People get so hung up on how many stars a recruit has next to theit name…I don’t think the rankings are completely bogus but there is something to be said about how coaches feel certain players are going to grow within your program. With that being said, at some point he is going to have to be able to land some higher ranked recruits and not just kids that he he believes will grow. This is a mid major approach that is destin for failure, see Greg Mcdermott & Todd Lickliter.
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Fran is the man and will get the job done. He brought the best player on the team from Sienna – have some faith and give him some time…
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For all of you naysayers……can you tell me where Bryce and Melsahn were both rated last year!? Was Bryce considered a top JC player!? Did he lead the Big Ten in assists? Was Melsahn heavily recruited by “big” programs!? Was he 1st Team All Freshman!? Yes, we need to improve recruiting but Fran DID have a good class this year and all the pieces he needs are coming together. How about Matt Painter and the class he just graduated with Purdue…….I would say that class of players did pretty well for themselves and look to see where they were rated. This year will be a success and the recruits will follow! All of you thinking he’s going to get 5 star recruits in what is really his first season of recruiting are idiots! This isn’t Jim Tressel, Jerry Tarkanian, Tim Floyd, John Calipari, or Pete Carroll we’re talking about you know…..thank God!! GO HAWKS!!
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The Hawkeyes are sooooo DOWN! It will take awhile but I believe it will happen…..1st division in 4 or 5 years. So simple…get good players and have a good team. Get great players (OSU) and have a great team………GO HAWKEYES !!!
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Let them start winning and they will bring down a few recruiting rebounds of their own. Basabe, Oleseni, Hubbard… these are steps in the right direction. We’ll get there. Go Hawks.
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Those so called experts don’t know crap in basketball or football. Sorry Bob your to small and slow. Your not even worth the time for any top notch college team to mess with. You’ll never make it in college football. So much for the experts right Bob Sanders? You so called experts are full of doggy do do.
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The Iowa probram was a desolate wasteland when FM came to town. Do you really think that in ONE year he is going to build the instant reputation that is needed to recruit the top BB players that WANT to come to Iowa.
It will be a slow build. Iowa has never been a Champion like the wrestling team is. Remember Dr. Tom fell out of favor with the AD because he could not win the B10 title, and Lute left for greener pastures in Aizona because he would be leading the B10 with 3 games to go, but never be able to claim the crown.
Only 1)Time, 2)Quality play with the hand Iowa has been delt with current players,and 3)Alot more wins, will give Iowa the reputation that draws player to a winning program.
In the mean time make sure the areana is filled, not with snoozing old geezers, but with rabid fans that will give Carver more the atmosphere of arenas in East Lansing or Madison,
It is just too bad the cocktail crowns gets courtside seats in IC instead of being like Breslin where the student section surrounds the court.
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Watch what happens this year with the ninth ranked recruiting class in the Big Ten.
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