The city of Ames may have another Harrison Barnes/Doug McDermott high school basketball experience on its hands in the form of young Tamin Lipsey.

Iowa State men’s basketball got ahead of the game this past weekend, offering a scholarship to the 2022 graduate before even seeing Lipsey play a high school game. 

In fact, Lipsey won’t even be a high schooler until the fall, when he enters ninth grade at Ames High School. Iowa State is Lipsey’s first collegiate offer.

Lipsey isn’t the first Little Cyclone to draw interest from the big Cyclones before their 16th birthday. In the past, the Cyclones have shown early interest in Harrison Barnes, who instead went to North Carolina to play college basketball. 

The Cyclones didn’t offer Doug McDermott, who was committed to Northern Iowa before joining his father at Creighton. 

Offering Lipsey before he even begins his school puts the Cyclones in a strong position to possibly keep this Ames basketball star in town.