Pre-Season Q and A Part II

What is your biggest question mark going into the season?

JMeeks writes:

Everyone assumes Jameel McKay will start immediately when he is eligible, but I don't think that will be the case.  Hoiberg has always made changes to the starting lineup slowly.  Georges didn't start his freshman year until the Big 12 games started, same for Monte last year.  If the Cyclones have good chemistry with a starting line up (I'll say Morris, BDJ, Nader, Georges and Hogue), Fred won't rock the boat.  You'll see McKay get minutes off the bench to begin with, perhaps switching spots with Nader by the end of the year.

GreenIvy writes:

I agree its taken Fred until late in non-conference or early in conference season to make adjustments to his starting lineup, however they will only have three games to get it sorted out before conference play.  In this case I think if Fred thinks he is a starter, he starts right away or at least by the South Carolina game.  Regardless, I don’t think the starting lineup is really that big of deal for Fred’s teams.  The best players will play the most minutes regardless if they start or not.  There are going to multiple “starters” coming off the bench.

My biggest question mark was going to be about BDJ and whether he could play team basketball.  From all accounts so far this hasn’t been a problem and rather than pin it all on him I will throw all of the transfers under one umbrella?  Is this the year that the transfer “side effects” rear their ugly head?  This is the most talent Fred has had in his tenure.  You can say all you want about what left the team last year in terms of talent, the amount of players deserving minutes is more than last year.  Who becomes the odd man or men left out and how do they respond?  Do guys like SDW, Matt and Naz start to see their roles diminish and how do they handle that if they do?  For the record I don’t think Matt and Naz will see a diminished role by any means but it might look different than it did a year ago.