Two of the 10 players on the USBWA Freshmen All-America team are from Iowa

Here's some weird, wild stuff. Two of the 10 freshmen college basketball players honored today by the United States Basketball Writers Association are from Iowa. From the same high school, in fact.

What are the odds?

Harrison Barnes (North Carolina) and Doug McDermott (Creighton) of Ames High School are the honorees. Barnes was a first-teamer on the USBWA's Freshmen All-America team and McDermott is a second-teamer. McDermott is the only one of the 10 players to come from a mid-major.

This is where I once again say McDermott would have been a Northern Iowa Panther had his father, Greg McDermott, not left Iowa State to become Creighton's coach. McDermott had signed a letter-of-intent with UNI, but was released from it by Panthers Coach Ben Jacobson to play for his father at Creighton.

Frankly, Greg should have signed Doug to play for him at Iowa State in hindsight. He's good enough. But you can understand why he didn't. Had Greg won more games at ISU, he could have given a scholarship to his son. But since Greg never got it going with the Cyclones, it would have been a tough deal to put his son through there.

Northern Iowa might be playing in a better tournament than the Collegeinsider.com Tournament (at home against Rider Tuesday night) had it had McDermott in the lineup. It might very well be playing in the NCAAs for a third-straight year. But that's life, and UNI Coach Ben Jacobson did the decent thing by freeing Doug of his commitment.

Last week's Iowa boys' state tourney made Jacobson look good as a talent-evaluator. Jacobson locked up West Fork's Seth Tuttle and Linn-Mar's Matt Bohannon a while back, to few headlines.

Well, the 6-foot-9 Tuttle led West Fork to an unbeaten season and Class 2A state-title. He was captain of the 2A all-tourney team.

The 6-4 Bohannon was captain of the 4A all-tourney team. He had a fantastic tourney in helping unbeaten Linn-Mar win the championship. He scored 14 points in the second-half of the Lions' title-game win over Des Moines Hoover. He scored 75 points in Linn-Mar's three games at state.

Jacobson's three other signees for next season are 6-5 Marvin Singleton Jr. of Hopkins, Minn., 6-0 Deon Mitchell of Pflugerville, Texas, and 6-1 Jevon Lyle of Kansas City, Mo.

Singleton's team is still playing in the Minnesota state playoffs. Mitchell's team ended the season with a 29-5 mark. Lyle didn't finish the season with his Archbishop O'Hara High team.

Lyle was suspended from school for two days and kicked off the team after an altercation with a teammate late in the season.