The Iowa State basketball team looks like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard: bare. Four of last year’s starters graduated and two players transferred, but Head Coach Tim Floyd is not one to sit on his laurels and wait for recruits to graduate high school. Last Friday, Ned Wrightson, a junior from Sartell, Minn., verbally committed to ISU in Floyd’s office.

Wrightson chose ISU over perennial powerhouse basketball schools like Syracuse, Wake Forest and Vanderbilt, to name a few. “I was planning on visiting more, but I have no plans to do more. I’m verbally committed to Iowa State.

“[I feel] real good,” Wrightson said. “[I did it] just so schools don’t bug me. The letters have been getting bad; the first 100 were fun, but it just got sickening.”

Wrightson’s hometown of Sartell is relatively small with a population of 5,500 and he feels that Ames has a small town feel to it. “I think Ames fits me perfect, I like the friendliness.”

The six-foot, three-inch shooting gaurd averaged 21.6 points per game last season, a school record, and has been a varsity starter since ninth grade.

“He’s done a lot of good things,” Dave Angell, Wrightson’s high school coach, said. “His assets are his excellent range shooting the three [point shot], his ability to take the ball to the basket, rebounding and his excellent vertical leap.”

That vertical leap is in the astounding 40-inch-plus range. “Overall, he’s a good athlete,” Angell said. “He’s working very hard on his game and individual skills. I’d have a hard time believing that anyone works on their game more.”

Wrightson feels that Floyd’s system will help his game. “[Floyd] likes to run screens. He ran them with Hoiberg and was succesful; he said I had that ability.”

ISU is getting a class act in Wrightson, who believes that school and people skills come first and basketball second. “I’m not concerned about individual statistics,” Wrightson said. “Team success is number one, personal stats aren’t even in the top 10, and that’s my honest opinion.”

With one year of high school left, the main goal Wrightson and his teammates want to attain is a state championship. “We expect to go to state, no ifs ands or buts. We just want to win.”

That winning attitude and desire will follow Wrightson to Cyclone country. “I was impressed with Coach Floyd and how he doesn’t just coach and recruit, he teaches,” Wilkerson said. “He believes in teaching and I believe I can reach my maximum potential.”

Wrightson will spend this summer on tour with the Minnesota select team. “We go to the Kentucky Prep Fest next week, then Long Beach and Las Vegas,” Wrightson said. “A nice little vacation.”

Floyd was unable to comment on Wrightson, due to an NCAA rule that doesn’t allow coaches to comment on recruits until they have signed their letter of intent.