There’s no way around it: Tyrese Hunter transferring to Texas hurts. It stinks. It is sad. It is disappointing, and it is a little angering, and I’m going to explain why Iowa State people shouldn’t be mad at him but at the same time…did he have to choose Texas? Couldn’t he have gone to the ACC or the SEC or the Big Ten?
If you missed it and you’re a Cyclones fan, sorry to break the news this way, but Hunter announced this afternoon that Texas is the destination. Tyrese Hunter is, from now until he declares for a future NBA Draft, a Longhorn. Hopefully that NBA Draft declaration eventually happens. Hopefully it happens next year, so Iowa State doesn’t have to keep playing against this kid. But if it doesn’t happen, well, it’s probably good that he transferred to Texas. Here’s why:
NIL deals for college athletes are, in some form, an insurance policy. Tyrese Hunter, at this moment, expects to play in the NBA, and that’s a reasonable thing to hope on, but it isn’t guaranteed. Even a career in Europe—one where players can make enough money to, managed well, set them up for life—isn’t guaranteed. There are no guarantees with athletes’ health and development, which makes immediate payments, like those afforded by NIL deals, valuable. Tyrese Hunter going to Texas is comparable to Ozzie Albies signing an early extension with the Atlanta Braves in that he’s heightening his immediate earnings in exchange for some stability. Where it differs is that he, unlike Albies, is not exchanging future upside. The NBA upside is still there. It’s a great deal for a college kid and it hurts no one but Iowa State, who—we’ll get to that in a moment.
The Texas piece of this, again, is hard for Iowa State. Texas is a conference opponent, and I’d say something of a rival for Iowa State’s men’s basketball program. It isn’t a fierce rivalry—it means nothing compared to the rivalry with Iowa, it lacks a name like that of the rivalry with Kansas State, Texas doesn’t occupy the same headspace in the Cyclone consciousness that Kansas occupies (and Iowa State occupies nothing of the Texas headspace, I would imagine)—but it’s a bit of a rivalry, one where Iowa State is among the middling college programs trying to routinely beat one of the most monied programs in the nation, and is recently one of the teams that’s done it, most notably in football. Iowa State/Texas is kind of like Oklahoma State/Texas: Texas doesn’t take Iowa State lightly, and they play each other often enough for conflict to develop naturally. Iowa State is still a step below Oklahoma State, year over year, but I prefer that comparison to the K-State one, and West Virginia is too unusual in the Big 12 to be a parallel here.
At the same time, though, Texas is probably the best spot for a guy like Tyrese Hunter right now. The donor base is presumably active and aggressive with their payments, Chris Beard is a great coach (and a solid bet to be a good guy, as far as college basketball coaches go), Texas is a better school than Iowa State should Hunter ultimately need to “go pro in something other than sports.” It’s hard to guess on another fanbase giving him more money than Texas’s is probably going to give him or already giving him. This is why it’s hard to fault the kid. Also…
To recap Tyrese Hunter’s time with Iowa State:
Steve Prohm initially recruited Hunter. When Prohm was axed, Hunter had the choice: Go play for Iowa State, coming off a two-win season (overall, not in conference, that team won zero Big 12 games) and relying on a bevy of transfers to restore a semblance of respectability, or go find another program, many of which were lining up to take him. Hunter, in something that is inappropriately unappreciated among a too-large subset of Iowa State fans, chose to stay. He chose to come to Ames. He honored his commitment when the school couldn’t honor theirs, that the coach who’d recruited him would be there.
Once in Ames, Hunter was nothing short of phenomenal. He was the team’s best player. He was the team’s leader. He was, as a freshman, the guy who ultimately carried the Cyclones into the Sweet 16. He outperformed the high expectations set upon him, and he did it while being as respectable a player as you could ever ask him to be. There is not a player I can think of who represented Iowa State better than Hunter represented Iowa State, and with most any program in the country wanting a player of his talent, he had no obligation to do any of this. Tyrese Hunter owed Iowa State nothing. Iowa State owes Tyrese Hunter a lot of appreciation. It isn’t a charity case—there were things Iowa State gave Hunter which persuaded him to come to Ames—but it was a mutual transaction, and right now in college sports, mutual transactions have a one-year shelf life.
This isn’t to say nobody can be pissed or disappointed or a little bit grudging about this. It hurts. But to call attention back to the wildest thing about Hunter: This is a guy who lost both his parents as a child. This is a guy raised, for the last half decade or so, by his older brother. This is a guy whose family can really use the money that NIL deal can provide. His decision is understandable no matter what his financial situation is, but given his life is what it is, it’s especially understandable.
What does this mean for Iowa State? I think this is the best way I can put it:
Iowa State lost Hunter as much as Hunter left Iowa State. Iowa State did not (as a community, not just as a school—this is an important distinction right now) find the necessary resources to keep Hunter. This isn’t just financial. It’s largely financial, but the comfort of staying in Ames, the promise of winning and developing—as a person and a player—the honor of going down as one of Iowa State’s all-time greats…these are all things Iowa State could sell as well, and while it’s largely financial, those things aren’t nothing, and Iowa State didn’t do enough across the board to keep him.
This is important, because it informs how Iowa State fans should feel about Hunter, and how Iowa State fans should treat Hunter, and also how Iowa State fans should feel about and treat Iowa State. Hunter didn’t leave Iowa State high and dry. Iowa State, to an extent, let Hunter walk, in college basketball’s equivalent of free agency. They let him get away, and they let him get away to a conference rival.
This is also important because it’s not going to stop being a threat. When Iowa State has players as good as Hunter, especially in sports as prominent as football and men’s basketball, they are going to need to be proactive and aggressive about keeping them. Big parts of the Iowa State community were blindsided by Hunter’s departure, including myself (a blogger/fan but also a low-level Iowa State donor, to show that credential for a second against the buffoons who aren’t giving anything to the Cyclones but criticism of good kids). That can’t happen again. Iowa State will lose good players. That’s who Iowa State is—Iowa State is not a power, and hopefully yeah, one day we can be, but that’s not where we are right now. But Iowa State cannot be blindsided.
Credit to T.J. Otzelberger and his staff for a great transfer portal session so far, even with this included. Iowa State basketball remains in a fine place. Obviously, we’ll all miss Tyrese Hunter, but Iowa State is fine, and credit to Otzelberger & Co. for that. Hopefully we can beat him: Not so Tyrese Hunter loses (I’ll be rooting for him to succeed, and others around Iowa State should be doing the same, because again—he’s a good kid, Iowa State let him walk, and he never owed anything to Iowa State), but so Iowa State wins.
The 2023 Tournament Continues to Take Shape
In the news from the last 24 hours, Santiago Vescovi will be back at Tennessee and Hunter Maldonado will be back at Wyoming after each decided to exit the NBA Draft. Neither is surprising, but both will be impactful.
Seiya Suzuki’s Finger Might Be Fine. The Cubs Are Not.
Things blew up yesterday. The Cubs lost 20-5 to possibly the worst team in baseball. Seiya Suzuki hurt his finger in the process on an awkward slide (x-rays were negative, the hope is he won’t have to go on the IL but we’ll see), but that’s secondary to the display of incompetence the Cubs put on in Cincinnati.
It was a bad game, and it wasn’t an inexcusable game by any one player. Justin Steele had a rough start, but he wasn’t atrocious. Nobody in the bullpen is deserving of active criticism, even if the bullpen allowed approximately eight billion runs. The lineup put up five, which is more than the Cubs have scored in a whole lot of games this year. But it was the second straight loss to end a series the Cubs had led 2-0, it finished off a manageable stretch on a negative note, and more than anything, it drove home the overall state of these Cubs: They stink. They are a bad baseball team. They’re better than a lot of other teams around the league, but this is not a playoff-contention-adjacent roster. That’s not where this team is at.
On one hand, this isn’t fun. It’s the first time since 2014 it’s been undeniably clear that the team isn’t competitive this early in the year. On the other, though, what did we expect? Yes, it’s frustrating, but this is the way it works if you try to maximize a championship window, which is what the Cubs are trying to do. Could they have done it in a way that didn’t require years as bad as this and last? Yes. Yes, that’s possible. But the way to do that is not to throw enough money at free agents to win 80 games so it doesn’t sting as bad and you clog development. The way to do that is to develop your outrageous wave of blossoming talent in 2018 instead of bringing in Chili Davis to screw a lot of things up.
This isn’t Chili Davis’s fault, of course. He was just trying to do his job, and it’s not like he did anything different from what he promised. It’s the fault of the Cubs for hiring him, and for their overall failure to develop major league hitting across the board. It would have been silly to expect all of Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Javy Báez, Kyle Schwarber, Willson Contreras, Albert Almora Jr., Addison Russell, etc. to be Hall of Famers. But it wasn’t silly to expect more of them to get better between 2016 and today than did, and when that didn’t happen, this was the result. Of everything the Cubs have done between 2016 and today, the only actual transaction of cowardice and cheapness was the non-tender of Schwarber. Everything else has been a failure of development, primarily on the side of major league hitters. Now, here we are. Maybe the Cubs will get back, but as yesterday demonstrated, we’re probably more than a year away from that.
In happier news, Nick Madrigal started a rehab assignment. Fingers crossed that it goes well, and fingers crossed that the Cubs can play like a Major League team this weekend against the White Sox. Good time for a day off today.
Warriors vs. Celtics
The Finals start on Thursday, and…oh, one more game tonight?
I don’t know how many championships Steph Curry and Klay Thompson and Draymond Green have together. That seems like a good thing to find out, and asking how the Durant title or titles (I really don’t know, guys, and I blame the NBA for that) impact how those line up historically sounds fun. Maybe we’ll do all that next week. In the meantime, we check the score tomorrow morning to make sure we haven’t lucked into a Game 7 between the Heat and Celtics. That would be compelling. Tonight, most likely, is not.
The NHL!
Meanwhile, great things happening in the NHL. The Oilers avoided doing what the Avalanche did, which was to, with a recent reputation of spoiling opportunity, spoil an opportunity to close a series out in Game 5. Now, the Oilers get to rest up while the Avalanche have to go to St. Louis tonight, where they’ll either win on the road or force themselves into a Game 7 where all the pressure will be on them at home as an overrated team (by betting markets, at the very least).
Connor McDavid scoring the winning goal for Edmonton was a nice touch. That series with the Flames didn’t end up as wild as the first game implied it would be (hard to live up to a 9-6 finish), but McDavid scoring the final goal is a good feather in the cap of a guy whom the NHL would like to become an all-time great.
On the other side of things, the Hurricanes won again at home, which—what else would they do? Now they go on the road, where despite them demonstrating they really mean it with this only-win-at-home thing they’ve been doing, my superstitious instinct to counter my own superstitious instincts thinks they’ll close it out against the Rangers tomorrow. I am always Michael Bluth, looking into the paper bag.
Racing’s Racing (Sometimes)
I’m excited to bet on the Monaco Grand Prix on Sunday morning, because it is evidently entirely devoid of passing, making it almost purely a bet on the timing of cautions and the durability of various engines. Also excited to bet on the Indy 500, a unique race on the IndyCar circuit even beyond its status. The same can be said of the Coca-Cola 600 for NASCAR because of its length. Hopefully we can hit on at least one or two of the three and make the effort worthwhile. We’re still counting on our MLB futures to pull the Best Bets out of their deficit, but it’d be nice if NHL and motorsports plays (and college football, when that fires up in August) could help chip away at the gap.
***
Viewing schedule, tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday (second screen rotation in italics):
Friday:
- 7:10 PM EDT: Phillies @ Mets, Eflin vs. Carrasco (MLB TV)
- 8:00 PM EDT: Avalanche @ Blues, Game 6 (TNT)
- 9:40 PM EDT: Blue Jays @ Angels, Manoah vs. Silseth (Apple TV+)
Saturday:
- 9:55 AM EDT: F1 Qualifying at Monaco (ESPN2)
- 4:10 PM EDT: Yankees @ Rays, Cole vs. Kluber (MLB TV)
- 7:15 PM EDT: Cubs @ White Sox, Thompson vs. Cueto (FOX or MLB TV)
- 8:00 PM EDT: Hurricanes @ Rangers, Game 6 (ESPN)
- 10:10 PM EDT: Astros @ Mariners, Urquidy vs. Gilbert (MLB TV)
Sunday:
- 8:55 AM EDT: Formula 1 Monaco Grand Prix (ESPN)
- 12:45 PM EDT: Indy 500 (NBC)
- 1:40 PM EDT: Yankees @ Rays, Severino vs. McClanahan (MLB TV)
- 2:10 PM EDT: Cubs @ White Sox, Miley vs. Cease (MLB TV)
- 2:15 PM EDT: Brewers @ Cardinals, Burnes vs. Mikolas (MLB TV)
- 6:00 PM EDT: Coca-Cola 600 (FOX)
- 8:00 PM EDT: Blues @ Avalanche, Game 7 if necessary (TNT)
- 8:30 PM EDT: Heat @ Celtics, Game 7 if necessary (ESPN)
We’ll be back with notes on Monday, or so is the current intention. Have a great start to the weekend in the meantime.
