By ADAM ZAGORIA
PITTSBURGH — When Zach Lewis opted to transfer after graduating from UMass a year ago, he chose Iona for both academic and athletic reasons.
On the academic front, he’s now in Iona’s sports communication and media program and is “getting a Master’s for free basically, which is perfect,” he said here Wednesday.
On the athletic front, he was friendly with Jon Severe, the former Fordham player who spent last season at Iona, and made the NCAA Tournament. Lewis has essentially replicated Severe’s experience by also making the NCAA Tournament as the Gaels won their third straight MAAC Tournament title.
Iona has two grad transfers on its roster now as well as a junior college transfer (Roland Griffin), and has had about half a dozen grad transfers in the last eight years under head coach Tim Cluess. They’ve also had additional players who transferred but weren’t grad students.
As the No. 15-seeded Gaels (20-13) get set to play No. 2 Duke (26-7) in a Midwest Region first-round matchup here Thursday, their recruiting philosophies underscore their different approaches to building a team.
While Duke has a handful of one-and-done prospects like Marvin Bagley III, Wendell Carter Jr. and Trevon Duval, Iona has several done-and-ones like Lewis and TK Edogi, the 6-8 forward who will partially be tasked with guarding Bagley.
“For us a one-and-done would be a grad transfer,” Cluess said. “Because realistically, we’re not able to get involved with those type of players. We’re just not, our league, our facilities, our budgets, all of the things that go with that. So we understand that.”
Cluess, who has led Iona to the NCAA Tournament in five of the last seven years, said he prefers a more mature player and student-athlete. With assistant coach Jared Grasso leading the recruiting efforts, Iona has mastered the MAAC by utilizing a heavy dose of transfers.
“I try to put it like if you’re a CEO of your own business,” Cluess said. “Do you always want to go out and hire the guy straight out of college, or do you want to get the best fit that does the best job? Sometimes it’s the guy right out of high school. Other times it’s a need, somebody that’s a transfer, a junior college player, a grad transfer.
“It doesn’t scare me to retool every year. I don’t want to go into it and say, If I bring this whole group in, four years from now, I’m going to be good. Even at our level, that window of sitting around, if you don’t do well, there’s not a lot of patience every at our level. We understand it.”
Duke, by contrast, has the pick of the litter and regularly has a roster filled with McDonald’s All-Americans and projected one-and-dones. Bagley, Carter and Duval are all projected to go in this year’s NBA Draft after one season at Duke.
Next year’s Duke team will include the three top prospects in the Class of 2018 in R.J. Barrett, Zion Williamson and Cam Reddish — who are also the projected top three picks in the 2019 Draft, per ESPN.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who used to coach at Army, understands the Iona tradition and says Cluess “has built a program,” understands that Cluess is recruiting the way that best suits his program.
“If you go every year to the NCAA Tournament, he’s doing something really good,” Coach K said.
Coach K has repeatedly said he’s had to adapt to the one-and-done era and now the grad transfer, but he access to one-and-done type players while the Ionas of the world do not.
“I’ve been coaching for 43 years,” he said. “I better adapt to how I deal with the kids I coach.
“And so good leaders stick with good fundamental values while they adapt to the current environment of how to be successful and he’s done that. And really, the grad transfer thing is a huge thing. That’s been something that really hasn’t been written about, the impact of the grad transfer, because — and they’ve done a really good job of it. And just transfers in general.”
As for how the different philosophies will match up on the court, everyone knows the 15 seed is a huge underdog to the 2. But the 15 has won seven times, including in 2015 when Duke lost to Lehigh.
“We’re just here to compete,” Lewis said. “We’ve got 40 minutes to play every game and that’s what we’re going to try to do. It’s us against them. We’re not really worried about their great powerhouse success and things like that. Just 40 minutes we got to be better than them, just for that one day, so….
