Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/239227
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, offiver been punched in the cials didn't quite know what to kidneys? do with him, said Greg Watkins, If not, you should know: It's Haas' coach at Hokes Bluff High not pleasant, especially when the School, occasionally calling fouls act of violence is committed in a on Haas that might not have competitive environment under been had they been committed the pretense of "defense." by someone a foot shorter and a Such is sometimes life, hundred pounds lighter. though, for Isaac Haas, the 7-footAnd vice versa, as contact 2, 275-pound Purdue recruit who against Haas — the kind that towers over opponents so much might have pummeled smaller so that their only recourse is to players (i.e. anyone else) — try to drag him down a level. might sometimes get filed under Sometimes by any means nec"He can take it." essary, sometimes as serious as "I think they have adjusted physical abuse, sometimes as much better this year than last juvenile as concealed efforts to year," Watkins said. "… This "pants" him during games. year they have done a really good It's not uncommon for Haas job. They are used to calling him to have a defender hanging like now. It's gotten a lot better with a Christmas ornament from one Brian Neubert just them being comfortable callWith his uncommon size, Isaac Haas obviously leg, another from the other. ing for a guy that size now." Pushing sometimes isn't all possesses the physical attributes to affect games as But there's only so much that that apparent when the pushee a rebounder and rim-protector. can be done. won't budge, but it's pushing Haas will always be a target, nonetheless and simply the conditions on the ground for a by sheer virtue of the impossibility of the matchup for his player who stands out like a skyscraper in the gyms of hilly peers, albeit peers in age only. 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 of- where 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 2