There's talent on the ISU basketball team. That's not wrong.
It's just not very much Power 5/6 talent. Aside from bad shooting, the stark difference in general athleticism between even average basketball teams and ISU is pretty emphatic.
To make up for that they'd need to be way better fundamentally, and they're not.
The first two seasons under CSP, although a bit underwhelming, the team improved and was playing some really good ball toward the end of the year. Year 3 was a wash with injuries, youth etc. but there was at least some positives.
Last year they got to the tournament, had a surge for 3 days in K.C., but really never improved as a unit for reportedly all kinds of reasons.
This year is just a thinly talented team that's really showing the true colors of the program in that there's not really any one thing they do well.
I think the definition of talent is so different for many people it's tough to debate. I think people use the term talent and athleticism interchangeably and ignore the skill and fundamentals factor at the individual level.
From a size and athleticism standpoint ISU is below average among major conference teams. In terms of skill level, particularly shooting, ISU is very poor. So overall talent is poor relative to power conference teams. Now, is the talent so poor that they should be utterly non-competitive against the top teams, even on nights like last night or vs. Baylor when the opponent shoots poorly? Absolutely not. At the end of the day you still have a lottery pick on the team in the most important position in college basketball, and the team has been relatively healthy all year. No matter what else happens, if you have a lottery pick PG, winning 9-10 games and being unable to be competitive in a majority of games is not acceptable. So basically you've got a team that isn't very talented and is also playing worse than the sum of its parts.
I'm sure it's been discussed, but is it not obvious that the conventional, two big lineup is a lost cause?
- Last year Mike was solid as a 5 in a 4 guard lineup. This year playing primarily the 4 in a conventional lineup he's struggled mightily.
- Conditt and Young have been interchanged in the starting lineup. Whoever is starting and playing a bulk of minutes in the 3 guard lineup is struggling, while they have had relative success coming off the bench and playing a bulk of minutes in the 4 guard lineup.
There can be other reasons to these struggles, but it seems like all year long the team has been consistently horrible with 3 guards, and when it has looked decent it has been with Zion or Lewis as the 4.