My thoughts for the rest of my life about ISU sports is to just enjoy it and and drink beers
Fred also inherited four years of Ejim which was pretty huge.
Ejim was also only a 3 star recruit coming in and improved quite a bit over his four years here. Some of that credit goes to coaching staff
My expectations: not too high unless we can land two quality immediately eligible transfers.
I’m not convinced that we can do that.
so then you’re saying this staff deserves credit for players like Nader, Burton, Naz, and Thomas?
My point was that nobody expected LW to be here for the 19-20 season, so Prohm should have been preparing for that since he signed (no guarantees but that should have been looked at as an unexpected bonus). Of course we are better with THT being here, but to unexpectedly lose a single, non-PG player and fall into the utter depths we have is pretty bad.Horton-Tucker might have been the best player on the team this year. He was the match-up nightmare and bowling ball in the full-court, similar to a Deonte Burton, that this team is missing. He is hard to guard in the half-court and has the length/bulk to match-up with similar match-up problem guys on defense. He changes everything.
Haliburton is great but a true PG and has to have others around him making shots for his game to work. Bolton is a good scorer and shooter, but he is not really a match-up problem and is drawing better defenders than if THT were around. Put him on an opponents' second or third best perimeter defender, and he probably can up his game, too, obviously on offense but also making him easier to hide on defense for the same reason.
A team like this --
Haliburton
Bolton
Horton-Tucker
Jacobson
Young
---
Nixon
Lewis
Conditt
...probably does a lot better.
I would probably start THT at the 4 and roll small, but Prohm has a weird thing for Jacobson so I kept him in that starting lineup. See this analysis --
https://cyclonefanatic.com/forum/th...r-67-iowa-state-53.254640/page-9#post-7008481
tl;dr =
We go from #9 or #10 in the conference to something like #5. We would be between Texas Tech and OU right now, which means an NCAA birth.
You can't dismiss LW leaving early, even if he was expected to leave. You still have to replace a top player. Losing THT early simply compounded the problem.
There's no question that next year has to be better, probably much better. We do have some very nice players coming in, and a nice sit out with the wing size we've been missing in Johnson. We do need to find an immediately eligible transfer that will be a contributor this spring too, and we'll need every returner to step up.