Hlas: Cyclones grab a Racer to keep running

Can he or she recruit?

That's not the only question that matters about a college basketball head coach, but it's the first one. If you can recruit, you can compete. If you can recruit and skillfully coach, you can be one of the Masters of the Universe.

Fred Hoiberg did both.

It will take at least a couple years to see if Steve Prohm can recruit well enough for Iowa State to remain a serious player in the Big 12, which it was in the last four years of Fred Hoiberg's 5-year tenure there.

But there's legitimate cause for Cyclone fans to be optimistic. The main reason, to me, isn't Prohm's 104-29 record in four years as Murray State's coach. Although ... 104-29 is kind of fabulous.

No, it's this: The star of Prohm's 2012 NCAA tourney team, guard Isaiah Canaan, is an NBA player. The star of his 29-6 team of last season was sophomore point guard Cameron Payne, who is entering this month's NBA draft and is a certain first-rounder. Some who project this stuff have Payne going 14th, a lottery pick.

Quick, name the last player at an Iowa university who was an NBA lottery pick. That was Iowa State's Marcus Fizer, 15 years ago.

So that's two NBA players in four years at Murray State. Which indicates either quite an eye for high school talent, some mighty good coaching, or most likely, a combination. But it starts with getting the player in your program.

Prohm became head coach at Murray State in 2011 after Billy Kennedy left to take a similar job at Texas A&M. Prohm not only sustained the winning the Racers had been doing, he elevated it.

There was only the 2012 NCAA appearance, but there were four 20-win seasons. There was a College Invitational Tournament title in 2014, and two wins in this year's NIT.

Many felt Murray State should have received an at-large berth in this year's NCAAs after going 16-0 in the OVC and losing 88-87 in the conference tourney final on an off-balance 3-pointer by a Belmont University player with 3.2 seconds left. But the Racers' strength-of-schedule negated their 27-5 record.

Belmont Coach Rick Byrd, who has taken seven teams to the NCAAs, was happy to talk about his now-former OVC rival when reached by phone Monday.

'I think Iowa State's lucky,” Byrd said.

'First of all, Steve's a really good man, a good person. Secondly, I think he's one of the finest young coaches in the country. It seems to me his players really enjoy playing for him and he gets so much out of his teams in terms of consistent effort, which is as hard as anything we do.”

You can go overboard with statistics, since one team isn't another and one conference isn't another. But Murray State was eighth in the nation in scoring last season, 15th in scoring margin, and 16th in field goal percentage. Basketball wonk Ken Pomeroy ranked the Racers 13th in adjusted offensive efficiency, which is points per 100 possessions against D-I defenses.

That was against Tennessee Tech and Austin Peay, not Kansas and Oklahoma. But those who dismiss Murray State suffer from being uninformed.

Three of the school's four head coaches before Prohm are now at the high-major level. Mark Gottfried (North Carolina State), Mick Cronin (Cincinnati) and Kennedy (Texas A&M) all won between 21 and 23 games last season.

Now comes 40-year-old Prohm to Ames. After coaching point guards of repute in Canaan and Payne, he is handed a junior named Monte Morris who is rather gifted. And a forward named Georges Niang. And a post player named Jameel McKay.

And Naz Long and Abdel Nader and Matt Thomas. And a 6-foot-4, 250-foot transfer named Deonte Burton who is fond of windmill dunks. Hoiberg has fondly called Burton 'a freak.”

If your biggest fear was the next ISU coach pulling back the throttle, that can safely be put to rest. Prohm's Racers raced.

'He kind of turned those guys loose to let them make plays,” Byrd said. 'I think he does a really good jub utilizing what his players can do, and not having them do what they can't.”

How Prohm replenishes the roster next year and beyond is how he'll largely be judged at ISU. If he can take the 2015-16 Cyclones to postseason places they couldn't reach under Hoiberg, he'll have a heck of an opening for his future sales pitch.

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@thegazette.com