What Marcus did off the court is overblown, He was terrible in Big 12 play. He had an offensive rating of 93. He was bad on the court.
When you best player (most talent player) is struggling it brings down everybody's production. I don't know why people keep trying to judge the output from a broken system, all it is going to tell you that the system is broken.
Last years inconsistent play was the most telling sign for the team, something was deeply wrong with a team that had the ability to play at a high level.
I think that is the sad part of last year, they truly had a chance to be a really good team. But they seemed to struggle to just be a team.
I don't think we really know how good Edwards, Iwundu and Hurt are, they did have the moments and that is a good thing. But how many chances did they truly have to shine.
I don't think we really know how bad Jevon, Nigel were. They really were not in a good position to succeed. I don't think its fair to assume that Irving or Stokes are better players. But I think it won't be hard for them to be in a better situation.
Next years team is not about being great it is about being gritty and being a team to build off. That being said Bruce is looking his most important recruiting class at his tenure at K-State. He needs to land a class that allows the program to step forward. Without, that next years team play really doesn't matter. Doing better might actually hurt the program in the long run.
That is probably the main reason he is being so careful with the last scholarship.