100% based on vibes. There's just not a lot to work with now with regard to her. Compare her to Addie Deal, whose recruiting journey was always very much on a trajectory to land at Iowa. She came 3 times. She agreed to do a story with Kyle after the first visit. She was always liking Iowa content on social media -- even though she didn't post about every single step of her recruiting journey the way some kids do (she was actually fairly private).
In contrast, Emilee has only visited once. She did not do a Q&A with Kyle (I'm sure he asked, he asks everyone). She is ranked higher than Deal so we can assume demand for her is even higher. She's even less active than Deal on social so we can't see if she's engaging with Iowa content (or other teams' content). I just feel like we should manage expectations. We haven't been given much of a reason to assume she is leaning toward Iowa at all, is all I'm saying. If she comes again, or Bluder heads to Utah, or she releases a Top 5, I may "calculate" differently....
Meanwhile look at Hays. She agreed to a Q&A with Kyle. She has engaged positively with multiple Iowa posts on social (even some saying she should become a Hawk). As I mentioned earlier, her mom is clearly a huge Iowa fan. She likes basically every Iowa WBB post -- the only other program she engages with is EWU, where her other daughter plays. That's much more in line with Deal's trajectory than Skinner's.
This is all vibes of course. Nothing concrete whatsoever. It's just my opinion that of the 4 big 2025 targets, the order of likelihood that we sign them is:
- Hays
- Speiser
- McGaughy
- Skinner
Although I do think it's fair to say that now that we have Mallegni, Houston and Deal signed, we really don't need Speiser the way we need the rest. They are all athletic wings that can play the 2 / 3 and maybe 4 -- just like Speiser. I wonder if she realizes that...hopefully that's not a deterrent. She'd probably start over Mallegni and Houston (and it's fair to point out that Houston's knee issues may be come persistent).