The next step, making the tournament, isn't going to be that hard. It's the step after that which is much more difficult.
What surprised me some what is the stats. A healthy McCabe only averaged one rebound and less than one point a game more that an injured May. Despite others opinions I expect a healthy May to be a much improved player and contributor to this team. More along the lines of his freshman year. If May doesn't find himself with a more significant role it won't be because he isn't playing much, much, better it will be because the talent upgrade on this team appears to have improved significantly and playing time may be at a premium.
Making the tournament is extremely hard, particularly in the best conference in the country.
May didn't average 7 points and 3 rebounds last year. It was much, much less in both areas (I think 4 and 2).
He'll play some, but there are too many other younger, better players for him to play much
No it's really not, there's been plenty of very average B10 teams that have made the tournament, there's one or two that get in every year. Fran will get us in soon enough, either this year or next, but taking the program to the next level is what's going to be the challenge. I have no doubt that Fran can return us the Tom Davis of the 90's level, NCCA tournament every year, win a first round game almost every year, hell Fran was able to do that at Siena. Building a program that can consistently be an upper division B10 team is going to be his real challenge.