A player leaving midseason is bad luck, and certainly would be used as such for Prohm. We still have many here using Wigginton and THT’s expected departures as bad luck.
Frankly, if you recall the McD years, like Prohm, the narrative in justifying his W-L was all about the bad luck. He even had JP go on a transfer rant! Worse than penning a letter about too high of expectations?
Nevertheless, that year Scotty had mono, JVB injured, and Lucca bailed. Kind of like next year, he just didn’t have enough two-way guards and defense was an issue.
Guys leaving early to go to the NBA because they either so good or such highly regarded recruits from the start that they were already on that track when they showed up to Ames is different than probably your fifth-best starter, one with professional ambitions no higher than maybe playing in his native Germany for little money.
THT going to be drafted and Staiger leaving because he wanted out... Yeah, THT is a success story overall for Prohm, even if crippling to the program right now, while Staiger just up and leaving was on McD. Plus, Prohm has never had a good player transfer to another high-major program, like McD had with Wesley Johnson and Hamilton.
You are right some of those guys phased in and out of availability that year. But you know what? McD still had two former 4* recruits in Chris Colvin and LaRon Dendy around who I did not even mention. And you know who was not hurt that season? Future first-round pick Craig Brackins. Future NBAers Justin Hamilton and Diante Garrett. A really nice JUCO with Marquis Gilstrap. You know, his four best players, probably 60%+ of your minutes. They were fine, and even with the intermittent availability of Thug Life and JVB, he should have had plenty of talent there to not suck. Yet, he did somehow.
Prohm lost his two best players late last year in Haliburton and Bolton.
Even then, the two teams were not too far from each other, despite the last McD team having easily and obviously more talent top to bottom on the roster. Tyrese is the best talent out of everybody on the two squads, yes, but the next three with Brackins, Hamilton, and Garrett would all be McD guys, and Gilstrap versus Bolton would be a pretty close contest if not going to Gilstrap. Assuming they were healthy, I think you would probably take the rest of the supporting cast from the McD team before what we had last year, too.
All that said, despite last year's disaster, Prohm still gets some benefit of the doubt over the Iowa State version of McD for me. McD beat one ranked team in his entire tenure in Ames, and he never won anything of note. Prohm's bad 2018 team beat three ranked teams, the 2019 team had a good if frustrating season, and he won the Big 12 tournament. Banners in the rafters matter. McD never accomplished 1% as much as Prohm.
Which makes watching him succeed so much at Creighton so strange. It
should have worked in Ames. McD is not a bad coach. Something just never clicked.
