Published: March 26, 2008 10:38 pm         

Reed feels at home with ISU men's basketball

VU transfer adds depth at point guard

TERRE HAUTE — Rashad Reed could go home again … if only he wanted to.

Indiana State will be his future home instead.

The Vincennes University point guard is a Mansfield, Ohio native, and among others, he had offers to move up to Division I from Ohio schools Toledo, Cleveland State and Youngstown State.

But playing close to home isn’t what moved Reed.

“I was looking for a place where I could go in and contribute right away. Some place I could play some ‘d’, get my shots up, but make my teammates better,” Reed said. “I looked through it, and there were some other schools close to home, but I figured I have my whole life to go back home, why not play somewhere else at a school that’s in a decent conference?”

In addition to the Ohio schools already mentioned, Reed chose ISU over Troy and Murray State.

Reed made his choice to come to ISU in late February.

He is expected to bolster ISU’s depth at point guard as the Sycamores have a big hole to fill there with the graduation of four-year starter Gabe Moore. Reed would likely get playing time there along with Harry Marshall and possibly Jordan Printy.

“I picked ISU because I felt like the coaching staff is recruiting young, they’re good people, I felt like they could provide what I was looking for in basketball terms,” Reed said.

Mansfield (population 50,212) isn’t that much smaller than Terre Haute and it has similar blue collar roots, but Reed noticed major differences between the cities.

“There are similarities, but of everyone around Mansfield, I’d say 85 to 90 percent of everyone knows each other. Terre Haute is different. It’s not too big, but not too small,” Reed said.

Reed, 6-foot-1, averaged 12.2 points, 4.3 assists and 3.5 rebounds in his second season with the 28-6 Blazers, who advanced to the NJCAA Division I championships in Hutchinson, Kan. Vincennes went 0-2 at Hutchinson. Reed averaged 11.5 points, 3.6 assists and 2.8 rebounds during his first season at VU.

Reed was the top Division I player in Ohio’s Northwest District and was an Ohio Division I All-State selection in 2006 as he averaged 18.2 points and 5.8 for Mansfield High, a power in northern Ohio basketball. The Tygers pressed during Reed’s career, something that should help him mesh given McKenna’s desire to press more often.

That isn’t the primary reason ISU recruited Reed though. The Sycamores like his offensive potential.

“They liked the way I could shoot, they liked how I could create shots for others, they liked that I was a defensive-minded player, and they liked my confidence,” Reed said.

Reed is the first junior college player recruited since Kevin McKenna’s took over as coach a year ago. Todd McCoy was the most recent junior college transfer, as he came from Johnson County (Kan.) Community College in 2006.

Reed is expected to get a scholarship Harry Marshall received last year. Marshall will revert to an academic scholarship for his junior season.