Thoughts on Aaron Fuller giving Iowa Hawkeyes basketball the brush

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- Taking a moment between writing a Masters column and a Masters sidebar to react to Iowa Hawkeyes men's basketball.

Aaron Fuller is leaving. "Aaron expressed his desire to move closer to home and his family. " said the press release credited to new Hawkeyes coach Fran McCaffery.

The old "move closer to home and family" routine. That's what Justin Hamilton gave Iowa State a few weeks ago. Then he visited Virginia.

Hamilton is from Utah.

I don't know exactly why Fuller is pulling up stakes. He was supposedly going to check out of Iowa had Todd Lickliter remained as the Hawkeyes' coach. Kids.

Well, it isn't as if Iowa hasn't welcomed transfers of their own in the past. One of them, a rather nifty guard named Andre Woolridge, has applied to be on McCaffery's Iowa coaching staff.

Maybe McCaffery should hire Woolridge, if Andre can figure out a way to get a transfer in on one of those "hardship case" deals that means he doesn't have to sit out a season before beginning play with another school. Like Tyler Smith did when he left Iowa for Tennessee, and Jake Kelly when he left Iowa for Indiana State.

That "left Iowa for ..." deal, that's kind of a recurring theme, isn't it?

Like Kelly, Fuller's play really blossomed in the second half of his sophomore season. Like Kelly, there will be no junior year at Iowa.

I don't blame the players. It's not like they've got six-year, seven-figure contracts. But if you're going to barely get to know your basketball players, you'd rather have it because they're leaving for the NBA draft, not because they're simply hot to leave.

It's a jungle out there, and McCaffery and his staff will eventually have to start winning the battles internally as well as externally.

In other news, no one from Northern Iowa's men's basketball program announced Friday that they were transferring to another school.