Yeah, it is so easy to with the regular season conference championship. I mean everyone in the league is doing it...
Actually, he had a couple guys that he might have gotten if he came back. One being Cheick Diallo but if not him, he would have had gotten Max Biefeldt as a grad transfer which would have been a great addition to that team.
In addition, ISU was in good position with a lot of HS recruits for the coming years and would have kept getting good transfers.
These points are hit-or-miss.
-- CW said Bielfeldt wanted to commit, and he would have been nice depth,
but only for one year
-- CW said we were never getting Diallo
-- even if we miss on Diallo, though, I agree with you that Fred probably could have brought in some 4* kinds of guys (e.g., Niang, Morris, and Thomas) that were good enough to build a winning program around
-- I kind of disagree with you on the transfer market... it was about to get a lot tougher, and Fred's tenure in Lincoln is showing that, now that the blue-bloods are wise to it... Malik Newman was exactly the kind of guy that would have ended up in Ames early in Fred's tenure, but notice he ended up in Lawrence late in it
So, maybe. It just don't think it was guaranteed. Fred had a storm to weather if he chose to come back.
I don't think he would have sucked. But I thought we'd seen his ceiling, too.