Expectations for 2018-2019

[MartinCy]

What are your expectations to start the season with Missouri and Maui? I know they havent announced the brackets yet but is everyone content on 1 win in Maui? I know Xavier loses alot but I realistically I dont think we compete with Duke, Arizona, Auburn or Gonzaga. I could see us losing a couple then beating a team like Illinois or San Diego State. Thoughts?

2-1 seems like a realistic possibility. Iowa State is probably the 3rd or 4th best team in the field looking ahead.

Duke will be the most talented team in the country but will start at least 4 freshmen. Early season tournament it's tough to say how well they'll be playing as a team, but they have #1 team in the country potential and will be preseason top 5 for sure.

I'd expect Gonzaga to be a top 15 team again next year. Is Tillie back? If so, probably top 10.

Arizona will be completely gutted. Ayton, Alkins, Trier all turning pro early. Ristic and Jackson-Cartwright graduate. Zero 2018 commits left. Potential transfers due to FBI deal. Will be interesting to see how they fill a roster.

Auburn seems like a wait and see where they're at in 6 months type thing. Most don't think Bruce Pearl is out of the woods yet.

Xavier has some nice pieces to build on but they'll for sure take a step back losing their top 3 scorers and the two guys who have been the staples of their program recently (Blueitt & Macura). Chris Mack's a really good coach so I don't expect them to completely rebuild, but I'd have us favored over Xavier on a neutral floor in November as of now. They'll probably be big players in the transfer market so outlook could improve that way.

Illinois will likely still be way down. Projected bottom of the B1G team again.

San Diego State nothing special. Best player graduates this year.

 

[Gunnerclone]

You know I blocked you over a year ago? Tell me you haven't been directing hundreds of posts my way and can't figure out why I haven't responded.

Not sure if serious. You just quoted my post and responded to me.

 

[VeloClone]

2 more wins and they are in, beat Kansas and it puts them in serious bubble discussions. Of course if they get in I honestly think it knocks a team like Oklahoma, Texas, or Baylor out, I think Big 12 gets 8 maximum.

They are not necessarily competing with other Big 12 teams to get in, they are competing with the last bubble team. That may be a Big 12 team or may not. The committee is pretty adamant that they don't have time and don't care to keep track of how many get to the dance from each conference. They are looking at resumes trying to put in the very best at large teams after the auto bids are filled.

 

[CyForPresident]

Tournament or bust. No excuses in year 4.

 

[KKramer]

Big Dance and top half of the Big 12 is the expectation for me. I also expect the first 10 games to be all over the place...again. Prohm seems like he throws spaghetti at the wall early in the season to come up with the right rotations...don't see that changing given the influx of 6 players into the lineup. Hopefully he will get that cleaned up prior to the conference starting. The case for optimism is I can't recall an ISU lineup that will be filled with as much talent as the one next year.

Ejim and Kane's team and then the team after that with BDJ were more talented through the top 8. But from 1-9/10 I would agree with you.

 

[FinalFourCy]

Ejim and Kane's team and then the team after that with BDJ were more talented through the top 8. But from 1-9/10 I would agree with you.

Imo most of the past 6 years were better at the top, which is where it really matters. But spots 6 through 10 next year should be contributing past the norm.

 

[LRam1270]

THT is a starter day one! have you seen him play? No way that kid does not have a big impact next year

what top 30 kid doesn't start?? name me them, that dont play for the blue bloods??!!

 

[OnlyCyclones]

Every year under Prohm we are going to have all this great depth, yet year 3 and we still have 6 or 7 actual Big 12 caliber players in the rotation.

There were four healthy Big 12 level players in the rotation when Solomon and Babb went out. This year had no expectation (don't confuse that with hope) of depth, or even high end talent that wasn't Wigginton. Prohm likes to play 7 or 8, and that's probably the best way to play. The problem this year is that our 7 weren't good, for a laundry list of reasons. Next year that should be different.

 

[OnlyCyclones]

Prohm's third recruiting class will be this year, and almost every player that actually arrived (McNeill was a freak occurance; Juiston looks sketchy from the outside), has actually contributed at ISU, which is more than Hoiberg can say. Grad transfers haven't been kind to Prohm, but remember that 2017 was light in forward grad transfers (and Bowie was decent), and this year's grad transfers were both contingency plans to the McNeill and Juiston situations. Recruiting grad transfers, especially late, isn't smooth business.

 

[CYdTracked]

NCAA Tournament is in Des Moines in 2019 so would sure hope we can make the tournament so we have a chance to play where we'd have a huge home crowd advantage.

 

[TheJackWePack5]

And why is that? Maybe if Prohm would actually bring in Big 12 level players instead of Beverly and guys like Holden we wouldnt have these issues.

If you weren't so busy defending Nebraska (lol) and actually did an ounce of research you would know that the transfer game isn't nearly what it was in 2010.

Prohm isn't going to beat the Florida and Oregon's (heck even UNC/KU) of the world. Just not going to happen. He needed bodies even just in practice. Weren't a lot to choose from (hence Ernst and Carter).

Who was Prohm going to bring in that was any good when he got the job a few Spring/Summers ago?

He has recruited high school players quite well (and that is obvious).

 

[OnlyCyclones]

Coaching is volatile. Sometimes we oversimplify team progress as something that should be linear, but in many cases it's not. Team's are living organisms, and they're all different. Prohm has been a winner 6 of his 7 years. He's not perfect, but none are. There are fine margins between last and 4th in this league, so I think ISU can get to at least 7th or 6th next year if improvement comes as expected, perhaps higher. But improvement doesn't come on a time schedule.

It's like puberty, it's different for everyone. Or it's like kids: you know your kids better than anyone, but do you really know what buttons to push as a parent, all the time? You can know your kid is capable, and you can you try hard to help him/her reach that capability, but kids are complicated.

 

[LLCoolCY]

Prohm's third recruiting class will be this year, and almost every player that actually arrived (McNeill was a freak occurance; Juiston looks sketchy from the outside), has actually contributed at ISU, which is more than Hoiberg can say. Grad transfers haven't been kind to Prohm, but remember that 2017 was light in forward grad transfers (and Bowie was decent), and this year's grad transfers were both contingency plans to the McNeill and Juiston situations. Recruiting grad transfers, especially late, isn't smooth business.

Next year all the current players are eligible (no sit outs Shayok, Jacobson) and fingers crossed healthy (NWB, Young, Brase, and Talley) and I would guess they identify a walk-on or two to join the team.

Additional experienced players should help for more productive efficient and practices, thus development and incorporating new plays/sets. All the players will have the coaches practice/game day/lifting/recovery routines down. Having only 6-7 healthy year 1 players in the system made Prohm's job 3X more difficult than with a seasoned group this past year.

 

[heitclone]

Ah geez Rick.

But in all honesty, judging Prohm for what he told media while coaching one of the statistically better teams to have ever played at ISU is like one us forum folk being your online therapists. We have no idea what was actually going on. For starters, it's a common tactic for coaches to direct blame towards themselves to deflect it from their players.

Just my opinion here, I don't think any amount of coaching gets ISU past those Virginia and Purdue teams. Purdue was a nightmare matchup in hindsight, no amount of small ball was going to save us that game. Absolute same thing with Virginia. They didn't let us run, Niang was shut down, and they had a couple competent seven footers. They were ready, we were ready, and they played up to their one seed.

Fred beats Purdue 9/10 times, CSP didn't exploit Burton's mismatch until the 2nd half. Once he did, they couldn't stop us. Fred would have prevented them from ever playing both bigs at the same time, thus they had no size advantage. Prohm figured it out in the second half but Fred's version of small ball vs CSP isn't even a fair comparison. That comment is more about Fred than Prohm, he was a genuis at exploiting mismatches and negating a size advantage. UVA, you're spot on about though. We were just overmatched.

 

[jbindm]

Next year all the current players are eligible (no sit outs Shayok, Jacobson) and fingers crossed healthy (NWB, Young, Brase, and Talley) and I would guess they identify a walk-on or two to join the team.

I don't see any reason NWB and Young don't come back 100% healthy. I know tendinitis can linger for a while but it's not like a torn ACL or anything severe like that. If he's still bothered by next fall I'd be worried that it's something more serious.

 

[CYdTracked]

Prohm's third recruiting class will be this year, and almost every player that actually arrived (McNeill was a freak occurance; Juiston looks sketchy from the outside), has actually contributed at ISU, which is more than Hoiberg can say. Grad transfers haven't been kind to Prohm, but remember that 2017 was light in forward grad transfers (and Bowie was decent), and this year's grad transfers were both contingency plans to the McNeill and Juiston situations. Recruiting grad transfers, especially late, isn't smooth business.

I've been saying this all along, Fred left us with a 2 year recruiting gap as if his staff would have done their job this year's team would of had some 4 year guys that were juniors and seniors. All 3 seniors were guys Prohm had to bring in through transfers and the only juniors were Babb who Fred did recruit as a transfer and Talley who had to take 28 credits over the summer just to be able to play. Plus by the time we hired Prohm it was June so other than grad transfers and the slim pickings left for HS players Prohm's first class was a wash out too. I think these last 2 classes and the 1 coming in shows that Prohm and his staff can identify talent and recruit it to ISU. When was the last time we had back to back recruiting classes with high profile players like Wigginton and Horton-Tucker? Not sure we have ever, those 2 are the highest rated recruits since Fizer. Niang was a top 100 player when we recruited him, he was 56th by ESPN at the time.

Any concerns about Prohm being able to recruit Big 12 caliber players should be an afterthought by this point. Now it's all about continuing to add to the talent pool and being able to coach it to wins. We had lack of experience and no depth this year and the injuries magnified it even more. Would be nice to getting back to having a 10 to 12 man roster again with some balance in classes where we can endure some bad breaks once in awhile and not have huge drop offs when we graduate over half the roster some years like we just did with the last of Fred's 4 year guys after last season.

 

[KKramer]

Prohm's third recruiting class will be this year, and almost every player that actually arrived (McNeill was a freak occurance; Juiston looks sketchy from the outside), has actually contributed at ISU, which is more than Hoiberg can say. Grad transfers haven't been kind to Prohm, but remember that 2017 was light in forward grad transfers (and Bowie was decent), and this year's grad transfers were both contingency plans to the McNeill and Juiston situations. Recruiting grad transfers, especially late, isn't smooth business.

I agree with you on the grad transfers, but to some extent not getting any of the grad transfers they initially targeted has to fall on the coaching staff. We can call some of it bad luck sure, but there was opportunity to bring in major conference talent on the grad transfer front and the fact they missed on all of them can't be overlooked.

Prohm's track record so far hasn't been great on the grad transfer front, but Talley has been solid, and hopefully Shayok should be a major contributor, so things are looking up.

 

[LLCoolCY]

I don't see any reason NWB and Young don't come back 100% healthy. I know tendinitis can linger for a while but it's not like a torn ACL or anything severe like that. If he's still bothered by next fall I'd be worried that it's something more serious.

Totally agree. I didn't mean that NWB and Young wouldn't be 100% just pointing out all four missed multiple games and couldn't practice for weeks during the year.

I have seen some concern about NWB being healthy next year on the boards. I believe tendonititis can be corrected through rest and trust the trainers will have a new work out routine for him to properly come back 100%.

 

[NoCreativity]

Not sure if serious. You just quoted my post and responded to me.

I hit "show ignore content" just for fun. How long has this been going on? You need help. Lol

 

[Cyclonepride]

I don't see any reason NWB and Young don't come back 100% healthy. I know tendinitis can linger for a while but it's not like a torn ACL or anything severe like that. If he's still bothered by next fall I'd be worried that it's something more serious.

Young, definitely. Nick I'm not sure. I have tendinitis in my left arm from installing wood floors, and while I didn't treat it (or have a world class medical staff hell bent on keeping me in top shape), it took quite a while to get it back to feeling normal. Took probably 5 years for that arm to quit going numb when I'd sleep on it wrong, and still bothers me with random twinges 21 years later.

I'm sure Nick has the best medical advice and treatment possible though.