Is that the same standard when people bring up the injuries in 17-18 and the LW and SY injuries and suspensions this year. I’ve seen plenty of posters saying we would have been a bubble team 17-18 or won the regular season this year but for the injuries and suspensions. I just think you need to be consistent. The agenda driven arguments are only going to get worse over the next couple of years.
I completely agree with you.
When Fred had significant injuries, they immediately seize upon them as a
carte blanc that their most lurid fantasies of postseason glory were going to happen otherwise. If not for Babb's ankle or Niang's foot, we were absolutely going to be in the Final Four.
When the program under Prohm has injuries, however, they neither (1.) adjust their expectations nor (2.) let their fantasies dream what might have been in the same way.
In 2017-2018, literally everybody missed a game save for Wigginton and Beverly. Jackson missed time because of bereavement, Brase was never healthy (a known health risk coming into the season, to be fair), NWB was hurt, Talley missed much of the first half of the season, Solomon missed the end of the year, and Lard missed a few games (though, again, another kind of known risk there, only in another fashion). That team had some potential to sneak into the postseason and played well at times, but it just collapsed from the missing pieces.
I find it amazing that we
lost an incumbent and likely starter for the 2018-2019 team in Solomon Young... the largest guy on the roster, the only man to have started an NCAA tournament game for the Cyclones coming into the season, a model of silent toughness and embracing his role on the inside, a guy who played good positional defense on the block, set good screens, and boxed guys out on the defensive boards, and a developmental big man that you expect to start to really pay dividends come his junior year... and really do not talk about it much.
That, plus the suspensions to Talley and Lard, the injuries to Lard, Wigginton, and Griffin, Shayok missing the disastrous game in Morgantown, and everything else.
If Fred gets credit for deep runs that we
could have had if not for the injuries to Babb and Niang, then I think Steve gets some credit for missing Solomon against Kaleb Wesson. We needed a big and strong body for that battle, and he was unable to do his job.