Indiana State Picks Up Pair In Last Two Days
Heading into a pivotal season for Indiana State and head coach Greg Lansing, the last 24 hours have been massive for his momentum as he landed two of the state’s best players in the 2019 class.
The first to drop was Floyd Central (IN) forward Cobie Barnes who came off the board yesterday with announcement via Twitter. He is one of the better forward prospects in the Midwest and saw the vision from Coach Lansing for his future.
Barnes stated in our conversation that he thought Indiana State and Lansing would use him the best and his comfort with that was a big reason in his decision to stay in-state. Barnes picked the Trees over offers from Evansville, IUPUI, Miami (OH), Belmont, Lehigh, and IPFW.
Cobie is a big forward who provides the ideal inside-out combination and could really be a guy that excels in a situation like Indiana State. He’s going to have to take his game and add in a little more aggressiveness but in The Valley, he’s going to provide a bit of versatility that should help him to see some possible early minutes.
Then, around 24 hours later, Lansing picked up another key commit in Lawrence North (IN) guard Jared Hankins. The 6’4 shooter sped up his recruitment here in the last couple of weeks and went with Indiana State over offers from Miami (OH), Dodge City C.C., St. Bonaventure, IPFW, SIU-Edwardsville, and New Orleans.
Rumor was distance from home played a little bit of a factor and in the Missouri Valley Conference with Indiana State, Hankins could have quite a bit of success.
Hankins is coming off a much improved July and saw a tick up in his consistency which helped him to land all but one of his offers since the beginning of July. He’s a massive scoring threat and when locked in, he has the ability to put up a ton of points pretty quickly.
Jared could find himself inline for early minutes as he has the ability to shoot and that translates pretty well. Likely a bench option in year one but has the chance to end up as one of, if not, the best players on the roster.
Indiana State has three players graduating in this current senior class and with their two commitments this week, that puts them in prime position to take the best player they can with 2/3s of their recruiting class complete. Look for them to maybe focus on a post player to finish out the class.