Basketball coach Greg McDermott and his coaching staff are getting close to solidifying the 2007 recruiting class. They came one step closer last week when they picked up commitment number three.

Lucca Staiger, a 6-foot-6-inch shooter from Decatur Christian School in Illinois committed to Iowa State on Oct. 18.

Staiger is originally from Germany, where he played on the German national team for four consecutive years. Staiger averaged 24.2 points per game, 5.6 rebounds per game and 6.2 assists per game last season in Germany.

Decatur Christian coach Alan Huss said Iowa State snagged Staiger at just the right time.

“If he was in the United States the entire time he’d for sure be a top 100 player. Everybody under the sun has called about him in the past two months since he’s been here,” Huss told CycloneNation.com about an hour after Staiger’s commitment.

So how did Iowa State know about Staiger? McDermott and Staiger go way back.

“Coach McDermott has had a relationship with him for the past several years,” Huss said. “He’s known Lucca and known about him for quite some time. His coach in Germany and Coach McDermott are pretty close,” Huss said.

Staiger is said to be comparable to former NBA great Detlef Schrempf, who also happens to be a close friend of Staiger.

The coaches likely aren’t done with this 2007 class. The dramatic recruitment of Brewster Academy’s P’Allen Stinnett is still in progress, but an end could be in sight. Stinnett took his official visit to Iowa State last weekend, and according to Stinnett, everything went as well as possible.

“Now that I’ve done that, I feel pretty good about the situation. I just finished talking to my parents. I’m going to make a decision in the next day or two,” Stinnett told CycloneNation on Sunday night after his visit.

So what exactly did Stinnett and his parents talk about?

“I told them that I’m pretty sure of myself this time. They said to give it a few days,” Stinnett said.

Stinnett told me this Sunday night. It’s Wednesday as I’m writing this, and still nothing has happened. I’m not surprised, though. This recruitment has been anything but predictable even dating back to the Wayne Morgan days.

In one more basketball recruiting note, I think Iowa State is close to picking up the commitment of Dominique Buckley, a 6-foot-2-inch point guard from Romulus High School in Michigan. Buckley is a class of 2008 recruit who will likely be one of the top prospects in the state of Michigan when it’s all said and done.

Buckley is currently being recruited by Iowa State, Xavier, Dayton, Penn State, Miami, Florida State and Drake Look for this to come down to Iowa State and Xavier.

Chris Williams is a senior in journalism and mass communication and is the publisher of CycloneNation.com. You can hear Williams on 1430 KASI every Sunday from 10 a.m. to noon. You can also watch him every week on Mediacom’s Cy-Hawk Talk: State of the Nations (8:30 to 9:30 p.m.) and Wednesday’s on the 6 p.m. WHO Channel 13 sportscasts.