Iowa State’s ace in the hole

By Chris Williams, CycloneFanatic.com Publisher

Kansas City, Mo. – Fred Hoiberg has never coached a basketball game in his life.

The fraternity of Big 12 basketball coaches didn’t seem to really care about that fact when they met in Kansas City on Thursday morning.

In fact, I was a little bit surprised at the amount of times that former Charlotte head coach and now Hoiberg’s ace assistant Bobby Lutz’s name came up. According to many, Lutz is a key to the rebuilding of Iowa State’s program that hardly anyone is talking about.

“He has been around for a long time. He works really hard,” said Texas head coach Rick Barnes told CycloneFanatic.com. “What I respect about a person like Fred is that he is willing to bring someone in who knows it. He couldn’t have picked a better person.”

Lutz was at Charlotte for the last 12 seasons, where he led his alma mater to eight post-season appearances and five NCAA Tournaments.

“You don’t look at Fred as having an ego or being threatened by anybody,” said Nebraska head coach Doc Sadler. “That is something that with the success that he has had and his basketball experiences, he understands that everybody is there for one common goal. That is to help win whether it be the head coach, an assistant or whoever. Bobby Lutz has done that his whole life. I’m sure that Fred is learning on him a lot.”