Well right now even our top 100 guys aren't developing. That's a problem.
We used to be great at developing program guys. Triche, Southerland, Duany, Rautins and Arinze. Heck I'd take a Baye Keita on this team. His defense alone may be worth 4 more games. Non of those guys were consensus too 100 guys, but they produced here. I think we have lost patience with guys recently and some of that had to do with not utilizing all our possible scholarships IMO.
I think you are forgetting a few things here. What SU had happen was they were sanctioned. SU lost almost
25% of the total scholarships schools they were allotted for players, per year, for multiple years. That is a
huge strain and would be a
huge impact on any program.
It was one of the largest penalties ever given to a program up to that time. I think people forget that. How truly enormous a penalty the NCAA gave the program.
The penalty was designed to hamper the program for many years. And it didn't, at first. You better believe that pissed off the people in the NCAA who don't like JB. But, with such a penalty, for so long, it was inevitable that it would eventually impact the program. SU would have had to recruit like it never has before, like they tried to do, in order for the impact to not be felt. But they didn't succeed.
Now most of you blame it on Gmac & on JB. But, it isn't as simple as that. Then you throw in the fact that JB will be retiring after this year or next (I tend to believe he will walk away after this season, because he isn't the sort who will want a going away party)
With all that being said, the program had to let some of less developed or less skilled players go. And several players developed over the course of the time they were here (Some of you don't want to give the coaches any credit for the development, so you like to say they were already good enough before they got here) And they went to the NBA.
The truth is, the coaches
DO develop players. The players
DO improve sometimes steadily, sometimes enormously. Quite a few players have parlayed that into lucrative NBA contracts.
There will always be misses. Roberson has not developed as we all hoped. DC2 has been derailed by injuries. But, White & Gillon are imports, maybe to far along in their curve to show any major improvement, but they also haven't been with the program very long. Thompson & Battle are also new, but seemingly improving rapidly. And Lydon, though still inconsistent, has also improved enormously.
