Add another versatile piece to Fran McCaffery's recruiting haul thus far for 2012: 6'2" Indianapolis shooting guard Patrick Ingram has given his verbal commitment to Iowa. Ingram is the third commit for the year (Mike Gesell and Kyle Meyer being the first two) and chose Iowa over Loyola (IL) and Saint Louis. Ingram does not appear to be quite the prize that Gesell was (Scout has him ranked at two stars to Gesell's four), but he did play on North Central High's 4A state championship team as a sophomore and looks to be an athletic, quick presence on the court.
It's hard to judge too much from the short clip above, but for what it's worth, a few notes:
If this clip is representative of Ingram's overall game, we should be encouraged, because he went 36-38 from the field with 30 lay-ups and four threes for 76 points by my count. Those are Wilt Chamberlain-esque numbers, and I see no reason why the maker of this video would give us anything but a fair sampling of Ingram's game.
Seriously, though, Ingram appears to do the vast majority of his scoring inside, finishing mostly to his right on lay-ups and tear-drop shots (no dunks). He does not play much like a point guard, at least in this video, finishing inside off of passes rather than creating for himself or others. He's got good speed and decent (not outstanding) ups, and shows some quick hands on defense.
We get to see a little bit of his outside shot (all makes of course), but he doesn't show the most outstanding form, and Hlas tracked down a website that described him as "more of a mid-range shooter than 3pt shooter". Presumably if he had a knock-down outside stroke, his recruiting video would have highlighted it.
Man, he really likes to go to his right, frequently finishing left-side layups with his right and, on one occasion, bringing the ball under the hoop on the fast break to take a more difficult reverse righty shot rather than a simple left-hand lay-up. On another play, he does a reverse-Columbus and goes so far right that he winds up going left, bringing the ball down the baseline and under the basket and finishing on the left side -- with his right hand, of course.
The shorter guard (#3) making several of the nifty passes that lead to Ingram's lay-ups is Ronnie Johnson, who is headed to Purdue in 2012.
The song for the video is "John (If I Die Today)" by Lil Wayne feat. Rick Ross, which is fine and pretty standard for highlight videos, but it would be nice if just once someone would go with this song.
Ingram seems to switch between #23 and #24, suggesting he toggles between grandiose visions of himself as Michael Jordan and more humble visions of himself as Bill Cartwright/Tom Gugliotta/Danny Schayes. I may be over-psychologizing things here, though.
It's just a short video and there's not much to go on, so take all this with a grain of salt. At first blush, though, it looks like Ingram is a shooting guard through and through, the kind of quick, athletic wing player that Fran obviously covets. In fact, he bears more than a passing resemblance to one Anthony Hubbard, although not quite as strong and a little less explosive (also approximately eight years younger). It's a little worrisome that Ingram is a shooting guard that doesn't look like much of a shooter, and that he displays scant evidence of a left-hand dribble, but he will at the very least provide some key qualities the Hawks currently lack: speed and the ability to get to the rim.
