Future looks cloudy for Cyclones

AMES — Iowa State coach Greg McDermott will return for a fifth season, even though he has yet to post a winning record with the Cyclones.

Senior forward Marquis Gilstrap won’t be back, though, after the NCAA denied his appeal for another season. It’s also hard to imagine star Craig Brackins returning after thinking hard about jumping to the NBA a year ago before coming back.

Iowa State only won 15 games this season with Gilstrap and Brackins, who combined for more than 31 points and nearly 18 rebounds a game.

How are the Cyclones supposed to win without them?

That question will weigh heavily on the minds of Iowa State fans while they watch an NCAA tournament that once again won’t include the Cyclones.

Iowa State (15-17) likely closed out the 2009-10 season with an 82-75 loss to Texas in the opening round of the Big 12 tournament Wednesday night. Though the College Basketball Invitational tournament could extend an invitation to the Cyclones, McDermott said Wednesday that he wasn’t sure the CBI was the best idea for his banged-up team.

Many thought this would be the year the Cyclones broke through under McDermott, and even he said before the season that this was his most talented team yet.

McDermott also believed that, had the team he had in October stayed intact, the Cyclones would be talking about an NCAA bid by now.

Well, it didn’t — and they aren’t.

Injuries to valuable reserves Charles Boozer and Jamie Vanderbeken stripped the team’s depth by the time Big 12 play arrived. Starting guard Lucca Staiger bailed on the Cyclones just two games into conference play for a professional contract in his native Germany.

But that wasn’t all that plagued Iowa State.

Brackins and Gilstrap were invaluable assets, but the Big 12 is a guard-driven league. The Cyclones never had enough backcourt firepower to consistently hurt teams for focusing on the two frontcourt players.

Guards are also usually counted on to make big plays down the stretch — and Iowa State lost five games by five points or less in February alone.

Staiger’s loss hurt, but he was little more than a spot-up shooter. Starting point guard Diante Garrett was solid, averaging just over five assists per game, but he was more of a distributor than a game changer, and Scott Christopherson battled through mononucleosis late in the year, his first as a starter in the Big 12.

McDermott can take solace in the fact that Cyclones played hard down the stretch, even though the postseason was seemingly out of reach. Their 85-82 upset win at Kansas State last week was proof of that.

“We had some things that happen to us beyond our control, that didn’t go as it planned,” McDermott said Wednesday night. “We found a way to fight through it and at least remain competitive. And nobody’s more disappointed than I am that we’ve lost so many close games throughout the course of the year. But we didn’t lose because we weren't trying.”

Iowa State has already signed two players to letters of intent, 6-foot-6 small forward Melvin Ejim and 6-foot-2 junior college guard DeMarcus Phillips, and more could be on the way. McDermott has been recruiting with the possibility of losing both Gilstrap and Brackins on his mind.

The Cyclones also have 6-foot-6 guard Antwon Oliver, who redshirted in 2009-10, and they expect Vanderbeken and Boozer to return healthy next fall.

Garrett, Christopherson and center Justin Hamilton all made strides this season. Chris Colvin struggled at times as a freshman, but he could develop into the kind of guard Iowa State simply must have to compete in the Big 12.

McDermott is signed through 2015, and athletic director Jamie Pollard said Monday that he hopes to work with McDermott for quite a long time. But it’s never a good sign when an athletic director feels compelled to give a public vote of confidence to a coach with five years left on his deal.

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