CF is usually good for some dumb straw man arguments, but this one takes the cake.
Somehow the roster had enough talent to go 13-0 in non-con. There’s not a team in the Valley sniffing that. Hell, an MVC all-star team isn’t running the table with ISUs non-con.
And literally zero people suggested that ISU should win the conference. Most would be perfectly happy with just not epically collapsing.
You have to be realistic on what happened in the non-con. Freemantle didn't play in the Xavier game. Memphis was completely lost in the woods until 5 days ago. Creighton lost all 5 starters from last year's team. Iowa State was the first legitimately good team that Iowa had seen to that point. All great wins but those games are much different if played now.
TJ brought in a bunch of older guys that were excited to have a new chance and a new look at the game. They bought in, with no depth mind you, to a defensive system that takes an insane amount of energy that flustered and wore down teams that hadn't found themselves yet. This team was going to hit a wall at some point and now they're in a stretch where they're playing older teams that have multitudes more talent. What's happening isn't unexpected.
If the same thing is happening three years from now, sure, pile on and talk about underachieving. Just getting this team to even be in the conversation at this point is nothing but a huge win.