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m e n ' s b a s k e t b a l l r e c r u i t i n g LIVING LARGE Purdue's recruit's uncommon size a 'gift,' but not without difficulties BY BRIAN NEUBERT BNeubert@GoldandBlack. com Last year, after Haas had surpassed the 7-foot mark en route to where he is now, officials didn't quite know what to ver been punched in the do with him, said Greg Watkins, kidneys? Haas' coach at Hokes Bluff High If not, you should know: It's School, occasionally calling fouls not pleasant, especially when the on Haas that might not have act of violence is committed in a been had they been committed competitive environment under by someone a foot shorter and a the pretense of "defense." hundred pounds lighter. Such is sometimes life, And vice versa, as contact though, for Isaac Haas, the 7-footagainst Haas — the kind that 2, 275-pound Purdue recruit who might have pummeled smaller towers over opponents so much players (i.e. anyone else) — so that their only recourse is to might sometimes get filed under try to drag him down a level. "He can take it." Sometimes by any means nec"I think they have adjusted essary, sometimes as serious as much better this year than last physical abuse, sometimes as year," Watkins said. "… This juvenile as concealed efforts to year they have done a really good "pants" him during games. job. They are used to calling him It's not uncommon for Haas now. It's gotten a lot better with to have a defender hanging like Brian Neubert just them being comfortable calla Christmas ornament from one With his uncommon size, Isaac Haas obviously ing for a guy that size now." possesses the physical attributes to affect games as leg, another from the other. But there's only so much that Pushing sometimes isn't all a rebounder and rim-protector. can be done. that apparent when the pushee Haas will always be a target, won't budge, but it's pushing nonetheless and simply the by sheer virtue of the impossibility of the matchup for his conditions on the ground for a player who stands out like a peers, albeit peers in age only. skyscraper in the gyms of hilly Alabama. And so opponents run waves of bodies at him with the "I don't want to rag on any school," Haas said, "but it intention of using up all their fouls, and getting their monseems like the only way they can defend me is to just beat ey's worth for each and every one of them. They'll pull at on me the entire game and hope I get injured or get mad him, push at him, grab, scratch, punch, kick, claw, hack, and swing at them or something." whack, smack and whatever else comes to mind. Officials can protect Haas, but probably only to a point. The long-term result, Haas hopes, will be the mental They can't, after all, call everything. toughness it might breed in him down the line in college, And besides, this is a basketball dynamic virtually no ofwhere basketball will be more complicated on one hand, ficial at that level has dealt with. Haas might not just be the but much simpler on the other. largest basketball player these men ever see; he may be the In the Big Ten, Haas will still be the biggest player on evlargest human being. E f IllustrateD volume 24, issue 3 69