Matt Figger didn’t get much time to savor his promotion to recruiting coordinator on the Kansas State basketball team.
After earning the title two weeks ago, he immediately began preparing for the first day that class of 2013 recruits could receive calls from college coaches. With that day, and plenty of phone calls, in his rearview mirror he took a few minutes to discuss his new role and what the future holds for the Wildcats.
As you might expect, recruiting is the No. 1 thing on the assistant coach’s mind these days.
“The class of 2013, that’s a big recruiting class for us,” Figger said. “We’re going to need a few guys. Next year is not so bad, but 2013 is really our target year, because we have so many juniors. Replacing that many players is not an easy deal.”
But by no means impossible. Last year, the Wildcats knew Jacob Pullen and Curtis Kelly would graduate. Then they watched four players unexpectedly transfer from the program. By the time K-State announced its latest recruiting class, it had signed six new players.
The process was difficult, Figger said, because most of the high school seniors K-State had targeted during the fall had already decided to sign elsewhere. In many ways, the Wildcats had to start their recruiting efforts all over.
They ended up landing Angel Rodriguez, Jeremy Jones, Omari Lawrence and James Watson in addition to Thomas Gipson and Adrian Diaz. Figger is high on all six, and says the Wildcats have the potential to be a better team next season.
A main reason why: K-State got off to a strong start with this recruiting class, signing two quality players early.
“Landing Thomas and Adrian in the fall was a home run,” Figger said. “Nobody else in the country got their needs filled quickly like we did.”
Figger likes to think he played a nice role in signing those players, but he shares that credit equally with everyone else on Frank Martin’s coaching staff. He plans on doing the same as recruiting coordinator.
“When we go out and recruit, we’re all hands on,” Figger said. “I’m not going to take credit for signing kids. I have the title, OK, but it’s not about me going out and signing a top 20 kid. It’s never about me. It’s about us. It’s about Brad (Underwood), it’s about Lamont (Evans), it’s about me and it’s about Frank. It’s about us putting our heads together and finding the kids who are the best fits for our team. It’s never just me. I’m just a key to the puzzle.”
He has a few ideas on what he wants to do with the new title, though.
“I want us to be diligent and work to get the best player possible, whether that be Illinois or Texas or New York or Florida or wherever it may be,” Figger said. “But it’s more about relationships with people than it is just going out and blindly recruiting … A lot of times you can say, ‘Yeah, we’re going to get players A, B and C when you actually have no chance at them because you don’t have a relationship with an adult figure who has an influence on the kid.
“I think we’re going to continue to recruit through relationships and people we know and trust. If along the way there are new relationships built with people – and that happens, too – we will expand to those areas. But for me I’m just not going out and making random phone calls to say we’re recruiting a kid who is ranked fifth best in the country from Arizona. I’m not doing that.”
Evans will bring some new relationships to the table for K-State, and they will be explored. But as he indicated, Figger will try to stick with what has worked best for him and the Wildcats in the past.
His philosophy has always been: Get a prospect to take a visit and let K-State do the rest.
“The hardest thing is getting them on campus,” Figger said. “Once we get them here, we have success.”
For a number of reasons, including the new practice facility currently being constructed next to Bramlage Coliseum and the student section occasionally chanting the names of recruits during their visits.
“Once you get a guy to come here on a visit and they go to a football game or a basketball game and they see just how great the fan support is and how everyone in this town just bleeds purple, it’s incredible,” Figger said. “When kids come here, they see that and they feel the passion that 52,000 people bring to LHC Bill Snyder Family Stadium. The kids that come in here see that and it blows them away.”
Figger is thrilled to coordinate the process.
“I’m very blessed and very fortunate,” he said. “After 19 years of working my way up the ranks in the coaching world, it’s an honor for me to be able to represent a wonderful program like Kansas State, I owe that to Frank for having a belief in me so I can do that.”
