Morris average 34 minutes per game during conference play in 2015, which is the season I referenced.
Maybe Thomas did improve defensively last year, but as a team ISU was still pretty pedestrian at stopping other teams.
I don't think anyone here is going to argue that we were good defensively last year. We were first in points made and last in points allowed. I expect improvement, but mainly because we don't have another direction to go as a team.
The only reason I quoted your first post was because you brought up defense as a reason our back court was ranked where they were. I think the author mentioned defense a whole one time in that entire article. I just seriously doubt that this preseason list was put together with what back court has the best combination of on-the-ball defenders.
When ranking guards, points, field goal percentage and assists are usually king. We didn't lose anything in terms of guard production from last year and we are getting a vocal leader (Naz) back from injury.
Nobody puts a lot of stock in these preseason lists, but having 4 senior starters back and being ranked where they are is pretty ridiculous.