Iowa State basketball player Royce White is a force to be reckoned with at 6-foot-8 and 260 pounds, with quick feet and most of his frame blanketed in tatoos. Intimidation plays a factor in his game.

White pokes his gigantic hand in front of the ball for a steal and tips it to himself towards the opponent’s basket. He proceeds to throw down a thunderous dunk over a helpless Northern Iowa Panther. Amazing athletic play.

The thing is, this "amazing" play was overshadowed by the fact that UNI dominated the rest of the game, stunning the Cyclones 69-62 last week at Hilton Coliseum in Ames. Did I say "helpless" Panther?

I was in attendance, and noticed something curious when I looked at the game program. On Iowa State's roster, all but two of its players are from out of state. Texas, Georgia, New York, Oregon. These guys are from all over.

Northern Iowa's roster features six kids from Iowa and eight others from surrounding states in the midwest. Recruiting close to home seems to work.

NCAA Division I basketball schools should recruit more players in their own state, and they also stray away from recruiting players based sheerly on athletic ability.

Big-time schools have proved time and time again that recruiting is a no-holds-barred battle. Coaches constantly scour high schools (and junior colleges) across the country for fresh athletic talent. But is it the right type of talent?

Take the Northern Iowa-Iowa State game, for example. Here’s UNI, a mid-major facing a major D-I school from the Big 12 Conference, on the road. The contrast between the two teams was stark.

Each Iowa State player must have had 15 pounds on his UNI counterpart. The Cyclones were bigger, faster, stronger and more athletic. But they weren’t better.

Northern Iowa is known for stingy defense, and patient scoring. The Panthers play team basketball. If a player is having a bad game, there are several teammates there to pick him up. They play suffocating defense and shoot very well from behind the arc. And none of them are monster athletes who can jump out of the gym.

Northern Iowa looked like a team, and Iowa State did not. Four UNI players scored in double digits and their bench outscored the Cyclone bench, 34-15.

Northern Iowa is like an interchangeable-part system. Each player has similar strengths, and they all play smart. The cumulative GPA of the Panther basketball squad is nearly 3.2 (a B-plus). That is impressive. And it shows on the court.

I am not discrediting the UNI players’ basketball abilities in the slightest, because that is one of the main reasons for their success. They are all great players. But the way they mesh as a team and outsmart their opponents is what makes for great basketball.

And this is how it should be.

Major colleges have seemed to stray from cohesion and team-inspired play. When coaches bring in athletes from different sectors of the United States, either from high school or junior college, it is hard for them to create a team.

Sure, they have created a "team" with a point guard, a center, a forward and two shooting guards. But the cohesion is absent, the team isn’t really a team.

When Northern Iowa went on a run and took the lead last Wednesday night, the Cyclones looked lost. They were playing as individuals, trying to make things happen that couldn’t happen.

Recruiting only supremely athletic individuals is currently the most popular thing to do for most college basketball programs. But when you sacrifice intelligence and cohesiveness for athleticism, what is the consequence? The consequence is possibly losing more games than you win because the team is not really a team, and you risk making the school and
community look bad because of a low team GPA.

Iowa State’s Royce White is a great basketball player. But is he on a great team? That question has yet to be answered, but viewing the action courtside on Wednesday night I would say that ISU has an uphill battle to make strides as a team.

Programs like UNI have proved that you don’t need to recruit based solely on athletic ability to have a solid team. It also proves that great players are closer to home than you may think.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: Guy Martino is a student at the University of Iowa who writes for the Metro Sports Report. His younger brother, Max, is a member of the basketball team at Northern Iowa).