Steve Prohm

[Cyinthenorth]

I think the thing that bothers me the most about what I would consider to be Prohm's teams (the last 3 years, counting this one) is there's always a season long conversation about "buying in", "playing with effort, playing for Iowa State, playing the right way, blah blah blah" that never really seems to materialize. Why is effort and getting players to play as a team such an issue? Certainly last year's team had talent, but it's not like we're constantly landing elite, blue chip type of guys that should have these huge egos.

Also, why does Prohm get labeled as a great recruiter? His class rankings typically look nice but outside of the PG/Combo guard position, it hasn't been great. Let's go class by class with his High School recruits starting with the class of '15:

2015 (not all on Prohm, he had to scramble and some of these guys weren't his recruits):
Nick Noskowiak - never played a second at ISU - bust
Brady Ernst - averaging 5.7 minutes per game at Drake, his 4th school - bust
Simeon Carter - bust

2016 (not great):
Jakolby Long - not in the rotation at Southern Utah - bust
Cam Lard - obviously talented, was good on a terrible team, little impact last year
Solomon Young - rotation guy, decent player - hit

2017 (eh):
Lindell Wigginton - good player, badly mismanaged by Prohm in 2018-19 - hit
Terrance Lewis - still hasn't developed into a rotation player - TBD (leaning towards bust)

2018 (this class was very good!):
Talen Horton-Tucker - good player! - hit
Tyrese Haliburton - great player! - hit
George Conditt - developing, potentially very good player - hit
Zion Griffin - TBD

2019 (not looking great when 2 of the kids you sign transfer before the 1st game):
Tre Jackson - TBD
Caleb Grill - TBD
Luke Anderson - transferred to South Florida before the season
Marcedus Leach - transferred to Iowa Western before the season

He's definitely brought in some very talented, fun players, but not as many as you'd think. At the end of the day if you can't coach them up properly and manage their personalities, you're not doing your job as the head coach of a program with high expectations. Throw in consistently losing at Hilton and the leash should be getting very short.

2 and a half months later and Lewis, Griffin and Grill have officially joined the 'Bust' ranks. I don't think it's uncommon, nor is it unique to Prohm, to have players transfer out, bust, or both. Nevertheless, that 2019 class is 2nd only to the 2015 class in terms of worst ever at Iowa State. I agree that Prohm can't take the full blame for 2015. But another class like '19 and he is done for. No more reaching, and I don't think you can take developmental pieces like Grill, Anderson, and Leech unless you have a full stable in front of them. Hard to tell if any of those kids are P6 worthy, but they certainly weren't this year nor next. Grill was fed to the wolves this year (and Jackson, but he handles it OK), and Anderson and Leech probably left because they could see it coming and knew they weren't ready. Bring one or two of these guys in at a time, but make sure you have a bevy of upperclassmen help and don't kill an entire recruiting class by making project guys the whole class.