Toy Story would not be
Toy Story without Woody and Buzz, too.
You cannot say that, "Well, if X did not have Thing Y that is one of the distinguishing features for defining X that everybody remembers about it, then we would think differently."
Of course we would. Duh. Your point is utterly trivial. Winning the Big 12 tournament is a rare accomplishment in the program's history, and I will never forget it. It is easily the most memorable thing about last year, save for maybe the road wins in Lubbock and Manhattan.
Yes, if we have a better February and beaten Ohio State, then we could have met some of the ragged edges of the expectations we developed in the middle of the season (ones far in advance of our expectations before the season, and I doubt we were beating a very good Houston team in the second-round of the NCAA tournament). We did not. Hold that against them all you want, but when your baseline seems to be matching the accomplishments of the Fizer-Tinsley team (winning both the Big 12 regular season and tournament along with a deep run in March), I imagine you are going to end up disappointed basically no matter what the team does.
The team last year had two guys taken in the second-round, the freshman version of a guy (Haliburton) who might be a first-rounder at some point in the future, and a few D-League/Europe level guys. The Fizer-Tinsley team had a #3 overall pick and a guy who scored 4,652 points a 11-year NBA career. Prohm wrung a lot out of a roster that was not nearly as talented as the 99-2000 era nor as talented and experienced as the later Hoiberg teams.
I am all for having expectations and was disappointed how February 2019 went for the program too, but if that is your mentality, you are never going to be happy.
* * *
Despite all this, I generally agree with your second paragraph. Bolton gives us enough pieces. Better defense and team cohesion can make up for what we lost in raw scoring firepower. You are right, too, we have basically everybody stepping into much larger roles...
Haliburton => primary ball-handler, needs to score more, and needs to lead
his team
Bolton and
Nixon => both need to be better on defense and learn to score with higher efficiency than at their previous stops for a team with much higher expectations than PSU and CSU
Jacobson => needs to be a primary score and consistently play at his highest level against all levels of competition, needs to be a vocal leader during his senior year
Young => needs to come back 100% healthy and really hit his stride in his development arc, and both Jacobson and Young need to have an outside shot if we are to play them together
---
Lewis and
Griffin => at least one of them, and ideally both, need to look like 4* recruits rather than what they have been so far, where "bust" is an unfortunately fair description
Conditt => needs to firmly establish himself as a Big 12 big man
I would say that one of the freshman guards/wings needs to be a rotational player, too. Basically everybody up there has to play a tier above what we have seen before.
