Spotlight on... Iowa State's Royce White

Royce White was going to put the Minnesota Golden Gophers basketball program back on the national map. He was a native son and was ranked as the 19^th best recruit in the class of class of 2009 by Rivals.com... ahead of big names like Kansas' Thomas Robinson, San Diego State's Kawhi Leonard and Duke's Mason Plumlee.

Then he had a few lapses in judgment. He pled guilty to theft and disorderly conduct after an incident at the Mall of America and then left the team after an alleged theft of a laptop from a Minnesota dorm room.

Looking for a new place to call home, he landed in Ames with Iowa St. Cyclones' head coach Fred Hoiberg, whom he watched when Hoiberg was a guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves.

"He's a very engaging kid, a very smart kid, and he fully admits to making a mistake," Hoiberg told CBS Sports. "Everybody involved with it, they all thought that he was genuine about it and that he deserved another chance. We're excited to have him on board."

So now that the talented redshirt sophomore is able to suit up in a Clones uniform, what can we expect? Well, if you ask Des Moines Register columnist Marc Hansen, we can expect the greatest player in the history of the program.

Not Jamaal Tinsley. Not Marcus Fizer. Not even Hoiberg. White.

Those lofty expectations - which were only fueled by White's 11.8 ppg, 10.8 rpg, 6.3 apg and 3.0 spg averages, while shooting 67.6 percent from the field, during ISU's trip through Italy this summer - have made Clone fans giddy as a schoolgirl.

And while it might be easy to shoot down Hansen's claim, the Mayor isn't doing anything to quell the assertion.

"The thing I like best about Royce is that he's a very unselfish player," Hoiberg also told CBS Sports. "You totally set your offense differently with Royce on the basketball floor. Use him as a facilitator, and you put him on the elbows, you let him attack and make plays. And he's a very willing passer."