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[QUOTE="OttoinGrotto, post: 5347971, member: 297"]
I suspect Jesse Edwards leaving was a really pivotal moment in the program, for a couple reasons.

First, it took us from a situation where we would have had one of the best centers in the country and a really experienced player to having to shoehorn a talented guy into the spot. Maliq played well but that wasn't the ideal scenario. As I've mentioned in other threads, I think if Jesse was our center we make the tournament.

Second, I think him taking a deal from WFVU put blood in the water for portal sharks. Once that happened, we could not work from a position of strength. It was known that guys could be taken from us. That also meant that we could be leveraged (more or less how it seems to have gone down with Lampkin). It translated into a reputation as not being a serious player in the portal for the top guys.

There's an alternative timeline where Jesse stays, we make the tournament, maybe the program stays together better, and overall we're in a stronger position to be more enticing in the portal and we're not coming across as much like a wounded animal. That leads to a better roster this year, which is more forgiving of some of the learning on the job Red's clearly going through.

I'm not saying that fully gets us back to high level competitiveness, but it could be some effort to reverse some of the trends we've been watching for a decade now.
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