There is a scenario in which the Iowa State men’s basketball program, destined to a preseason top-10 ranking, lost a member of a starting five smack dab in the middle of the summer.
Abdel Nader strongly considered attempting to utilize the NCAA’s graduate transfer exception to move on from the Cyclones to somewhere else after the departure of former coach Fred Hoiberg to the Chicago Bulls.
“Obviously, there’s nerves any time there’s a new coach,” Nader said Thursday. “I was real close to graduating. Obviously, it was on my mind.”
Ultimately, Nader, through a series of discussions with new coach Steve Prohm, decided to finish out his career at ISU.