Is it entirely unreasonable to suggest that this would be our starting five this season?
Mbakwe is hurt, understood.
The other four left.
Justin Cobbs is Cal's second-leading scorer and leading assist man, and the Bears are 2nd in their conference at 13-4.
Devoe Joseph is Oregon's leading scorer and second-leading assist man, and the Ducks are 4th in their conference at 11-5.
Royce White is ISU's leading scorer, rebounder, and assist man, and the Clones are 3rd in their conference at 11-5.
Iverson is not playing until next year.
You can only make a meager roster do certain things. The biggest red flag about Tubby's tenure ought to be guys jumping ship. If they were non-factors or had no talent, you can sweep it under the rug. But these guys are all-conference at their respective schools, and they are winning in those systems.
Players should not want to leave a program. Something is wrong.
This is just a shot in the dark, but I feel that Tubby's substitution pattern - that primarily being not giving his best players enough playing time - is what caused a lot of these problems.
Iverson seemed always to be perturbed that he would outplay the hell out of Sampson, but Sampson would always start and play more minutes. At the end of his sophomore year, Iverson was by far the better player. Unfortunately, come the junior year when all this s___ started, Sampson was back starting, Iverson on the bench.
Joseph didn't seem to like always being under Nolen's shadow; and he certainly didn't like being a second-teamer (similar to Iverson). Undoubtedly, it never made much sense why he didn't get more playing time. His sophomore year he showed plenty. Unfortunately, he got in Tubby's doghouse to start his junior year and then quit. It will never make any sense to me, however, why Joseph didn't simply finish last season out instead of outright quitting.
Cobbs never got enough playing time, which is ironic because of Tubby's questionable substitution patterns, where plenty of lower-tier players get plenty of playing time - but not Cobbs. As such, with Nolen and Joseph ahead of him and Tubby gunning hard for Corey Joseph, the writing seemed on the wall. Can't blame Cobbs for leaving.
Mbakwe - first the legal issues, then the devastating injury - what a sad career that could have been. One brilliant, short season. It would be great to have him back next year, but I don't see him risking a pro career to do it.
White - then there's White - the guy who started the whole program downfall. The program was rocking, and had a HUGE future up until Royce White flaked out and got in legal trouble. My god what could have been. This program would have been just fine had Royce White never signed to come here. Instead, he blew it up, and the Gophers and Tubby are paying the price. It was a risk that had to be taken; and such a shame that it flamed out so badly. I really hate seeing him do well at Iowa State; but let's be real, we all knew the kid could play basketball, and that he'd succeed once he stopped being a complete punk.
As such, you can only blame Tubby for so much. White's situation was a pretty obvious call, unless there was a bit of "too strict" going on. Mbakwe
had to wait until his legal situation was over. Cobbs wasn't the answer his freshman year, and that year we were a tourney team - ironically, that year Tubby actually used his personnel correctly most of the time and the results displayed that. Tubby failed with Joseph and Iverson; both were much more talented than the playing time they got.
