Hlastradamus saw this Hawkeyes season coming

People who say 'I told you so” aren't the lousiest humans. Cattle-rustlers and horse-thieves are worse.

Remember that as I reprint what I wrote in this column last Oct. 2, which was Media Day for the Iowa men's basketball team.

Thursday's media day was low-key. (Fran) McCaffery, often a friend to optimistic hyperbole, offered none. And that could be a very good thing.

Let someone else carry the weight of expectations. This is a veteran, deep team. As good as (Devyn) Marble was, this could be a better unit without him as several players who sort of stood in his shadow are required to expand their roles and move the ball around more.

What happens if Aaron White is better? What happens if Iowa finds the right guard rotation? What happens if Jarrod Uthoff takes off the way many believe he can and will? What happens if big men Adam Woodbury and Gabe Olaseni go from being useful players to consistently resembling vital forces? What happens if Josh Oglesby shoots twice as many 3-pointers as last season but makes 40.3 percent of them for the second-straight year?

Wisconsin is the popular pick to win the Big Ten with so many good players back from its Final Four team. But the Hawkeyes are a lot closer to the Badgers than they are the dregs of the conference.

Wouldn't it be ironic if the volume started lower this time, and the Hawkeyes flew a lot higher?

OK, Oglesby shot 29.4 percent from 3-point range and hasn't a shot a lot more threes last season than this. But I nailed the rest of it, right?

Maybe gloating about this does make me worse than a horse-thief.

But I'll also confess to maybe making other predictions over the years that didn't quite come true. I'd go into specifics, but who has time for that?

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