Ike was pre season player of the year. So I see nothing wrong with centering your entire offense around him. This isn't football. Having a player miss multiple seasons is unusual. Great post players don't grow on trees. Ike was irreplaceable.
The real disaster, imo, is the lack of development of the rest of the team. We don't have a single reliable outside shooter. Other than Reynolds, not one player on this team can create his own shot.
I remember watching Larry Nance as a freshman. He went from good to great. So did Josh Adams.
I thought between Dusell, Oden, or Wenzel, we might get another real impact player. They are decent players, but none of them would start on any of the better teams in this league.
Linder lost a pretty damn good guard to transfer- the MWC freshman of the year. The impact of losing a player like that is hard to quantify. Turning Maldo into a point guard seemed like a good idea but it really hasn't worked since about mid season last year. Reynolds has improved. But his outside shooting is suspect and he really isn't an assist machine.
All coaches swing and miss on recruiting. Hopefully, Linder sees that next year's roster needs a complete overhaul. We might be in rebuild mode for another year. This year is a pretty ugly wart on an otherwise very successful coaching record. I'm afraid we will need to have some patience that Linder can correct this mess.