Uthoff available?
- Thread starter BryceC
- Start date
I heard these rumors on Friday. I'm writing about it in Monday Musings too. But don't look past the Matt Thomas recruiting battle as a possible reason...Nobody has told me this is the case but I'm just putting two and two together.
I don't understand why going head-to-head with Wisconsin for another recruit would cause Bo to restrict a transfer from going to ISU. These programs must go head-to-head for recruits on a regular basis. On the other hand, what Bo is doing here in relation to non-conference foes seems petty from any perspective.
Wouldn't it be to Bo's advantage to have Iowa State sign another recruit, taking up another spot on our 2013 roster...? Wouldn't that, if anything, drive Thomas away?
Sorry, that situation and this one aren't even on the same planet. It's a total Apples & Oranges situation. Brust de-committed because of a coaching change at Iowa and as such was granted a full release from his letter of intent.
Uthoff actually signed and went through a year in the program and was clearly a big part of the Badgers plans in the future. I don't see how these situations are related at all, but I could just be totally blind?
I'm sure that Iowa had hoped for Brust to be a big part of their future too. The situations are different looking at them individually, but the principle is the same. It is extremely hypocritical on Bo's part
I can understand why they restrict. They paid for one year of tuition, room and board, plus who knows what else.
But if the reason is Matt Thomas recruiting, my opinion would be that this is a serious mistake for Wisconsin. The signal it should send to Matt Thomas is this: If you sign with Wisconsin and then are unhappy, we will stop you from going to a program that plays the way you want to play, even if it's in your home state, and even if your family has connections to the program.
It's a pretty vindictive approach - punish the player. Matt Thomas has already hinted that Wisconsin might not play the uptempo style he wants. Why consider Wisconsin if you know they're going to punish you, if you decide you want to play a different style?
Iowa wasn't obligated to give Brust an unconditional release, so the situations aren't that different. Bo could have chosen to do the same with Uthoff. The one relevant difference was that in order to choose a Big Ten school, Brust had to have both the unconditional release from Iowa and the waiver of a conference rule by the conference reps. Uthoff wouldn't need that to go to ISU.
The other thing that seems to make the Matt Thomas angle an unlikely factor in what Bo has done is that Thomas isn't all that highly rated. A fine recruit, no doubt, but not a top 50 and perhaps not even a top 150 recruit (he isn't on Coleman's current top 150, for example). There must be something more going on for Bo to target ISU for inclusion in the restricted list.
It's possible that Utoff told the coaches that part of the reason he was transferring would be more playing time. If that was the case, I could see them restricting ISU, Marquette, and possibly other local BCS level schools as a way of forcing him to stay to his word and not transfer to another "big school".
Is he on someone else's top 150 list? Van is notorious for rating Iowa kids higher than other sources do, but he has Thomas in the same "honorable mention" category as all the top Iowa kids in the '13 class. I'm not trying to put Thomas down--a number of solid schools are after him. However, would he be such a key recruit for Bo (like a Sam Dekker, for example) that Bo would blacklist another school for recruiting him? There are, after all, other schools still in contention for Thomas.
I just think something else is going on here--but I also aknowledge that whatever the reason for this, it looks like Bo is being petty.
Fred was after Matt well before any lists were complied. I assume Bo doesn't use these lists either. Not relevant to coaches.
It appears they are protecting their recruiting footprint. The closest high-level D1 school not on the list would be DePaul. The closest non-Big East school is probably Missouri.
