What the 'rising' comments say to me is that Sep is recognizing that Fran has made these guys better.
I agree that the "really strong Sweet 16 candidate" comment is great recognition.
It's hard to deny the numbers and Sep keeps pretty close to them in his comments, so they're pretty accurate.
After noting all the close games we had last year, Sep sums it up nicely:
"That team [Iowa] lost little in the way of on-court production and has since picked up two talented players and a year of tough lessons in the Big Ten. I'll be very surprised if Iowa is sweating it out on Selection Sunday this March."
That's a nice article to point out to recruits.