Peterson: Recruiting guru T.J. Otzelberger is looking like a pretty good head coach, too
Randy Peterson
AMES — We knew T.J. Otzelberger could recruit. As an assistant, he helped lure some of the finest men’s basketball talent Iowa State has seen. Georges Niang, Abdel Nader, Matt Thomas, and Naz Mitrou-Long. Wesley Johnson played while Otzelberger was an assistant. And Craig Brackins, too.
Don’t forget Diante Garrett, Scott Christopherson, Mike Taylor and Melvin Ejim. And if you need more, there’s Justin Hamilton, Chris Allen, Will Clyburn and Tyrus McGee.
Among others.
That was Otzelberger before his hair started thinning a bit. It was Otzelberger cutting his teeth at the grass-roots level of big-time basketball, and he loved it — the hustle-and-bustle of running though airports, watching practices in quaint high school gymnasiums and probably eating a ton of fast food. But let's fast-forward.
The super recruiter has become the mastermind behind the college basketball's biggest success story so far heading into Thursday’s 8 p.m. Cy-Hawk game at Hilton Coliseum.
He cleaned out the roster he inherited after replacing fired Steve Prohm. He recruited (there’s that word again) out of the transfer portal. He kept one of the nation’s top high school point guards from changing the commitment he made to Prohm. He’s getting wonderful games from George Conditt again. And the result?
At 8-0, the Cyclones have quadrupled last season’s victory total. They’ve brought energy back to Hilton Coliseum, both on the court and among 14,000 or so fans who routinely attend games.
So far, they’re the surprise of college basketball, and they’re accomplishing it through a very different means than the offensively explosive teams under Fred Hoiberg and during Prohm’s first few seasons.
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This Cyclones team is built on defense, not fast-breaking or transition 3-point shooting. While I used to consider offense the business end of the floor, it’s actually not with these guys.
If the Cyclones are to beat the high-scoring Hawkeyes (7-2) Thursday night, it’ll be about defense and not bombs-away scoring.
"All nine players defend at a high level," said Iowa State television analyst Scott Christopherson, who played for teams on which Otzelberger was an assistant. "His defensive rotations are some of the best defensive rotations I’ve seen in college basketball thus far. This team defensively is as locked in as any Iowa State team I can remember watching."
And it’s being done by a guy whose main job was to recruit.
Talk about an 8-0 success story.
"It's such a huge part of the job," Hoiberg told me after learning Otzelberger became Prohm’s successor. "Single-handedly, the most important thing we do is recruit talent and players to the program."
But Hoiberg saw something else in Otzelberger, too. He saw an ability to break down opponent tape. He saw attention to detail.
"What I saw was a guy I knew would be a very good head coach," Hoiberg said.
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Despite coaching a roster full of players that didn’t know each other before arriving on campus last June, Otzelberger appears to be proving Hoiberg right, at least so far.
"The relationship-building component is what sets T.J. apart," Christopherson said. "Seeing and experiencing that relationship component with T.J., as somebody that recruited and coached me, and seeing what he’d done with this team, has been fun.
"This team playing together is refreshing and unique for Cyclones fans."
Otzelberger’s relationship-building actually starts at the crack of dawn, if sometimes not sooner. Daily, the team eats breakfast together, with the head coach included.
"We did not eat breakfast together when I played," said Christopherson, who played three seasons between 2010-12 for Greg McDermott and then Hoiberg.
Together, they’ll eat breakfast again before Thursday’s game, something’s that not as trivial as you may think.
"When we came in, in June, we outlined how our day would go every day – how we would work, how we would invest in each other, and that playing for each other was a big part of it," Otzelberger said this week. "They’ve done a good job of taking that plan and putting it into motion."
It's worked to the tune of beating ranked Xavier and Memphis en route to winning the Preseason NIT. It was a factor in beating Oregon State, an Elite Eight NCAA Tournament team last season.
Now comes Cy vs. Hawk, a game everyone in the State of Iowa knows will be as physical and emotionally intense as they come.
Iowa State must stay out of foul trouble, especially Conditt and Robert Jones, the other post player. Trying to defend Keegan Murray, the nation’s top scorer (23.9 points per game), will be a load.
"He’s an elite scorer; most elite scorers do it because they score at the rim," Otzelberger said of the 6-foot-8 mismatch of a player. "They score in the midrange, they score at the foul line, they score it from 3, and that’s what he’s been able to do.
"He’s imposed his will on people night in and night out."
More:What channel is Iowa State vs. Iowa basketball? Here's how to watch the Cy-Hawk game
Here’s something else: Iowa averages just 7.9 turnovers a game, while Iowa State opponents have averaged 19.4 turnovers.
"We understand the game can get chippy," Conditt said Wednesday. "We understand they’re going to try to get in our heads. They’re going to try to do everything they want to do.
"We just have to play our game. If we play our game, it’ll show."
Iowa State columnist Randy Peterson embarked on his 50th year of writing sports for the Des Moines Register in December 2021. Reach him at rpeterson@dmreg.com, 515-284-8132, and on Twitter at @RandyPete.