Eh, some of these things were known. JJ and Bell haven't played defense in their career and no one should have expected otherwise. Red even said that they planned on outscoring teams. Bell is shooting about as well as he did last season, but he can't stay on the floor because his defense is non-existent and he doesn't do much more on offense to make others better. Westry hadn't played in two seasons for various reasons and counting on him to do more than a few spot minutes would have been foolish. Naheem is a senior and has averaged 11 minutes per game in his career. Freeman is a frosh and its hard to rely on them to be a key component to any team.
The roster was flawed from the get-go and Red didn't bring in any difference makers.
Even with every thing you said being true, a lot of ills are cured of any two of the five things happen would have made a huge difference. A top notch transfer PG or Freemen being healthy and the top freshman we thought would be would have been huge difference makers.
Bell playing well, McLeod had all world rate stats coming into the season… Was he ignored or injured? Westry being relied on, was that entirely a fan construct? Did the staff know all along he couldn’t play, or did they count on him to no avail?
I’ve said it a few times, the staff knows more than us, but they don’t know everything. We don’t know exactly what was their mistake vs. bad luck.
We know for certain that Starling and Freeman’s injuries weren’t expected… nothing a coach can do except recruit good depth. That is what they did, they got veteran stars from lower level programs. Those guys weren’t expected to be starters.
To try to get back on this thread’s topic… I don’t think this years transfer strategy was a bad one. Solid veteran depth moving up a level, and
Two solid starters from the portal, and they would have been golden. If we had Richmond, Mack or even Leffew out there instead of Carlos, our win/loss record is probably reversed, and that’s just one of the Five things I pointed out that might not really have been in the control of the staff.
Their strategy for next year probably should be the same. Their implementation of that strategy was undesirable at best.
And that is completely separate from in game coaching, which has been very hard to watch this season.