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Message: [QUOTE="RF2044, post: 1303579, member: 40"] That seems overly pessimistic to me. Sorry, it does. I expect Gbinije back, and expect him to form as good of a perimeter nucleus with Cooney and Joseph as any in college hoops next year. That's a LOT of returning firepower. I expect Joseph to make the sophomore leap. I think that both Joseph and Roberson will be better as a function of having been thrown to the wolves this year. And I expect McCullough to bounce back next season and benefit from an additional year of physical maturity. Are there question marks? Sure. Every team has question marks every year in college basketball as a function of attrition. But reading through this thread, I get the impression that as frustrating as this team has been, that many posters don't appreciate how close they are to being pretty darn good. And that's with virtually zero depth, no backup center, no backup PG, etc. We don't need any of the frosh to be world beaters. We only need one of two of them to be contributing caliber for many of this year's team's warts to be mitigated. And if a guy like Richardson--a McDonald's all american, no less--can provide a little more than just token contributions, then our offense could be much more diversified next year. And if a guy like Coleman--another McDonald's all american--can bounce back, then a lot of uncertainty at center gets neutralized. And if a prospect like Bryant comes here--yet another McDonald's all american--then even sans Rak, center could remain a relative position of strength. BTW, prepare to be surprised by how solid Diagne is, and how he'll likely contribute as a reserve big even as a frosh. Next year has a lot of the right ingredients for our team to bounce back from this year's subpar results. We are honestly knocking on the door this year. Michigan, Villanova, UNC, Pitt, Duke -- all winnable games that we just couldn't quite eek out. Several of those were road games against very good teams. A couple of those games were against top 10 teams that we went toe-to-toe with right down to the wire. We are what our record says we are, but we're also an eyelash away from being a pretty damn good team, despite all of our depth constraints, general lack of offensive capabilities, and relatively poor [by our standards] defensive play. Imagine if either of those factors turns around next season--it isn't difficult to expect a jump in performance. Especially because our returning perimeter talent is so strong comparatively. [/QUOTE]

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