TJ is now the standard for turning around a program in the portal era.Iowa State only was a temporary "bottom feeder" program. ISU has made 10 NCAA tournaments within the last 20 years and will make it 11 this season.
Yeah, ISU's coach did a great job in immediately taking a team that had a horrible year and making them a winner again. That's why people wrote articles about him. People don't write articles about coaches who fail to do that but I would guess there are significantly more of them than there are coaches like Iowa State's.
Reminds me of the '91 Twins, technically accurate but not really complete, as "worst to first," from the previous season. Yes, they were in last place, but had a solid core of players that had made up very competitive teams in the immediate prior years, recovered some injuries and upgraded the line-up in crucial ways. It wasn't a magical turnaround like the phrase suggests, even though they were in last place the year before.