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Message: [QUOTE="OttoMets, post: 983518, member: 716"] I'm not inclined to mess with a good thing retroactively; I tend to think that a lot of the good SU teams mentioned here were good in part because of - not in spite of - the early departure of talented players. This includes the Pearl. Exceptions (however unrealistic it may be that some of these guys would have stayed in school): Carmelo. Even if Edelin didn't consistently stick with the team, this would've given us an extra scorer and made us a potential Final Four team in 2004 and probably a championship favorite in 2005. And he could have improved his game - upping that ~35% three-point percentage to something ridiculous and becoming a 25-12-5 player. Edelin. I think his absence cost us somewhere from 12-16 wins over the last three years of his career. His presence would have given us a good shot at a Final Four in 2004 and 2005. Unfortunately it also would have cost Eric Devendorf a lot of court time (I hesitate to say "slowed his development," since he wasn't a player who seemed to develop much) in 2006; perhaps McNamara could have made up for this lost shooting. Fab. Hard to say he made the right choice, given his current career situation. It's not like he hurt our chemistry when he was here; the problem was that he was a lazy turd who wasn't always here. With a 2012-level Fab, I think we'd have played Louisville for the title last year. With improvement, who knows. He'd add something this year, too, especially defensively (a great interior defender can make up for porous defense up top). And in 2012? He could have made a difference. Partial exceptions: Wes could've helped. How much, I don't know. But he made a good career choice and we had a pretty decent team in 2011. Paul Harris could've - in a perfect world - helped. I don't think we'd have lost to Butler with him on the floor. But it's not a perfect world and I don't think we'd have gotten to 30-4 with him on the team in a very reduced role. In terms of gross scoring, Dion could've helped. In terms of chemistry and the possibility of Michael Carter-Williams pulling a Kermit Washington on him (or vice versa), that could have spiraled into a 2002 situation last season. Limited as it was, it's best that we had that backcourt last season. Billy Owens could've helped. But I don't want to change much about Moten's career and I sure don't want to change the composition of that Dave Johnson Big East Championship team. Billy was extremely talented, if not a leader or a particularly hard worker. We would have had a better seed and a better draw with him on the team. Better end result? Who knows. The rest: Thanks for the effort, guys. You'd have made those teams more talented, but I bet they wouldn't have been more successful. [/QUOTE]

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