‘Chaotic’ is probably the best word I can think of to describe the roster situation Steve Prohm walked into four seasons ago. The immense talent on that roster, including six future NBA players and arguably two of the program’s five greatest players of all time, concealed an albatross of a scholarship chart that would undoubtedly plague the team a few years down the road.
The 2016 Sweet Sixteen team featured exactly two underclassmen on the entire roster, Hallice Cooke and Simeon Carter, neither of which would finish their careers in Ames. The 2017 team was a slight improvement, featuring a whopping three underclassmen in Solomon Young, Nick Weiler-Babb, and Jakolby Long, who transferred last season.