Every now and then, a team has one or two key players who are more concerned about their stats or pro potential than they are about listening to the coach and playing within the system.
No matter who the coach, there's not much that can be done.
I think that that was happening this year.
Other problems:
1. Egbunu. His loss forced everyone other than Chiozza to play out of position. Gak is clearly still a "project" at this point.
2. Isaiah Stokes & Chase Johnson. In addition to our center; our two power forwards are out all year. Technically, Johnson played a few games before concussion issues.
3. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. He would have been a back-up PG and shooting guard. 27 points, 6 assists and six boards last game. He decommited from Mike White a year ago October; leaving us with two players in the class. We managed to sign Okaru as a replacement; perhaps a good player in time but nowhere near the level of SGA.
4. Devin Robinson. No reason to go pro. Lock down defender, good shooter and threat to slash to the basket on any possession. While this team had penty of shooters, not were such a threat to attack the rim that the defenders had to play off of them.
Think about what our depth chart could have looked like;
PG Chiozza SGA
SG Allen Koulechev
SF Robinson Hudson
PF Stone Johnson
C Egbunu Stokes
That's a Final Four team right there; possibly NCAA champs.
We were missing literally 50% of what our two-deep depth chart looked like when the coaches were planning this team over a year ago.
I can't blame or judge our coaches what what they managed to cobble together with the spare parts they had left over.
-Zeb
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