Oregon State transfer Cooke chooses Iowa State

Former Oregon State guard Hallice Cooke - the just-announced, latest transfer to join Fred Hoiberg's Iowa State Cyclones - could always fill it up from long range.

So much so that as a senior at New Jersey's St. Anthony High School, the 6-foot-3 sharpshooter found himself featured in a national sports magazine.

Why?

'There was a stretch in the season I was shooting 60 percent,” said Cooke, a sophomore-to-be who announced his commitment last night on Twitter. 'I think I made Sports Illustrated's ‘Faces in the Crowd' for that. But that's something I never really paid attention to.”

Others did - and do.

'One day my brother, he was looking up stats and he told me that I was leading the country at one point in (that) season in 3-point percentage,” Cooke said. 'I don't really pay attention to the individual stuff, but just to know I was doing something that well is special and I look to build on that.”

He already did as a Beaver, shooting 45.6 percent from 3-point range his freshman season while averaging 8.2 points and 2.5 assists.

But don't pigeonhole him, Cooke stressed.

'I like doing the intangibles,” said Cooke, who played on the same AAU team, though a younger unit, as ISU's Dustin Hogue. 'I like playmaking. I feel I can bring more to the game and more to the team.”

Cooke said he chose the Cyclones over Dayton, Saint Joseph's and a handful of others for one overriding reason.

'If there's a guy on the floor, the whole team runs over and picks him up,” Cooke said of ISU's togetherness exhibited during a run to the Sweet 16. 'That shows a lot about the character of the guys on the team and also the effect of the coach. That's something that really stood out to me.”

Just as he did as a 'face in the crowd” a couple years ago.

But how did he find out he'd been selected?

'We had a big game against St. Benedict's and (one-and-done Syracuse star) Tyler Ennis and I was taking a nap in the nurse's office,” said Cooke, who plans to arrive in Ames in mid-June to enroll for summer classes. 'And they woke me up and they made me get up and take a mug shot. It was a terrible picture. I think I still have it, but I don't really show anybody.”

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