With a stellar freshman class, and with the addition of three really solid transfers (along with returning some talented guys), I think the tournament is the realistic goal if the team gels.
I do not want to speak ill of the dead, but there was a lot of addition by subtraction, too. Jacobson and Nixon were not problems at all, but they were just not very good at the B12 level when expected to be some of your highest-usage and highest-reliance guys. Lewis and Griffin sounded more like problems than assets. I do miss Grill because of his remaining upside, though, but he is something we can replace.
What worries me is the ability to build a good resume
Whats a realistic expectation for a non-con record with so many new pieces?
- Oregon State
- DePaul
- Illinois/Oregon/Florida
- Illinois/Oregon/Florida
- at Iowa
- SEC TBD
- 7 TBD mid/low majors
should also be noted ISU is 5-27 on the road the last 3 seasons
I would hope the committee would recognize a challenging schedule, too, and not just loading up on cream puffs. The world has changed from 10-15 years ago. You are going to (and should, too) have more vexing OOC games.
And that is a good thing -- I would rather watch us play that schedule than the equivalent schedule from the McDermott years, which would have taken out 2-4 of those high-major match-ups for games against UNI and Drake (which are at least interesting) and then SW Southern State types to make up the balance. Yeah, we are going to lose more games, but it is more interesting than leading the lambs to the slaughter.
We have plenty of those games yet still.
Plus, we play 18 games in the B12 now, not 16 like we originally did.