Fred Hoiberg is currently hanging out in Greece with his 7-foot-1 signee, Giorgos Tsalmpouris. Because of this, longtime assistant coach Cornell Mann filled in for Hoiberg on Tuesday’s Big 12 media teleconference.
There weren’t many newsworthy nuggets that came out of the interview as one, it is mid-June and two, well, it is mid-June.
However, a reporter out of the state of Texas did ask Mann about Iowa State’s recruiting methods though. I found Mann’s lengthy response to the question to be quite interesting and I’m sure that most Iowa State fans will too.
Clearly, Mann thinks a lot of his boss. Here is a transcript of what he had to say.
“I’m biased. Let’s understand that I am biased. I find Ames, Iowa to be a beautiful place and unbelievable community, one of which where I would like my own kids to grow up and go to school and be educated at. To go out and sell Ames, Iowa and Iowa State University is not very hard to do. I think some recruits will find it amazing and amazingly beautiful. Then some kids who are looking for more of a metropolitan type of area or city type of area but let’s be frank – when those kids are looking for the city, as a student-athlete you just don’t have very much time to experience the city anyway. The first thing we always talk about is Ames, Iowa. After that, of course, you get to play for Fred Hoiberg. Who wouldn’t want to play for Fred Hoiberg? I played at the University of Colorado and at Akron. I would like to play for Fred Hoiberg. He is an easy sell. He is an awesome dad. He is an awesome coach. He is an awesome boss. He is a really, really good person that cares about the players. We aren’t even talking about basketball right now. We’re talking about the person Fred Hoiberg. When you get to basketball side of things, you talk about a guy who is slightly a genius on the offensive end. He really pushes and gives his players confidence in a way that you don’t have to look to the sideline to see what the coaches are saying or doing. You have a job and you are on the floor. You play the way that we practice the game and you will see our guys during the game get together. They get together a lot because Fred has given them everything that they need prior to the game to go our and be successful on the floor. Now he played for Larry Bird and in his words, they gave him and his teammates as a player an unbelievable amount of confidence. That’s what he likes to do with his team. He likes to make sure that his guys are confident on the floor, well prepared and go out and feel free to play the game and not be worried. Our guys don’t go out and worry. That is all because of Fred Hoiberg being the coach.”
