Quick look at Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery's 2012 basketball class

IOWA CITY - Iowa Coach Fran McCaffery offered Adam Woodbury a college scholarship roughly a week after taking over the Iowa basketball program in March 2010.

McCaffery recruited Woodbury as hard as any player he's ever sought in his 29-year coaching career. Nearly 20 months and dozens of games later, McCaffery's persistence paid off for the Hawkeyes.

Woodbury, a 7-foot-1 center from Sioux City, was one of five players to sign national letters of intent to play basketball for Iowa next year. He's one of Iowa's most high-profile recruits in recent memory and provides the foundation for McCaffery's future.

“There's a reason that Adam Woodbury is one of the top 25 players in the country, and I think if you watch him as much as I did the last two years, I mean, nobody was at more of his games than I was,” McCaffery said. “As you know, there's a limited number of times I can go see him during the regular season, but in the summer there is no limit. So every time he laced them up for the last two summers, I was there. So I think I have a pretty good feel for his game and who he is as a person.

“You rarely get 7-footers to consistently run the way he does. He's as good a running big man as I've seen since I got into this business. And as a result, a lot of good things happen.”

ESPN ranked Woodbury as the 41st best player in the 2012 class. Woodbury was the MVP at the 2011 NBA Players Association Top 100 Camp.

“He's got an incredible ability to sustain effort,” McCaffery said. “You've got a seven-footer who does that, I mean, that is I think every coach's dream.”

Woodbury joins AAU teammate Mike Gesell, who is ranked No. 73 by ESPN. He was named Nebraska's player of the year last year after averaging 25.2 points and 8.2 assists a game for South Sioux City.

“The reality is if you watch Mike Gesell, his future is at the point,” McCaffery said. “When he makes the NBA, it'll be as a point guard, and he's going to have the ball and he's going to be making plays and making decisions because he can think, and he's got one of the most uncanny abilities to put a bad play out of his mind. I mean, it's like it never happened. If he makes a mistake, it never happened, and he goes and makes four good ones in the next minute and a half, and that's what the great ones do.”

McCaffery touted the athletic ability of Pat Ingram, a 6-foot-2 wing player from Indianapolis and Anthony Clemmons, a 6-foot-1 point guard from East Lansing, Mich.

“You look at (Clemmons) at first and say, ‘Boy, he's this talented player, but he's a gamer,” McCaffery said. “We needed that. We needed help in the backcourt, we needed athleticism, and we needed that kind of toughness. But we also needed another guy that could make shots, and that's what he does.

“Ingram, he's going to score more in transition. He is phenomenal at attacking the rim. I mean, plays above the rim, he's an absolute power pack. I mean, he's an assassin defensively. He will just take you right out of the game.”

Kyle Meyer, a 6-foot-10 post player from Alpharetta, Ga. McCaffery said Meyer's skill set and versatility are a plus.

“I want my frontcourt players to be able to make plays off the dribble and shoot the ball outside,” McCaffery said. “Not only can he do that, but he also has a low post game.”

Iowa has one more available scholarship for the 2012 class.

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