That's just not it. Not saying that Neighbors is blameless (he definitely isn't), but the players who left did so for a variety of reasons. Most didn't hate playing for Neighbors - one did. Most of them like him.
Scott left because of locker room issues. Didn't like the fact that the upper classmen - especially Spencer, who was a very polarizing figure in the locker room -- treated her. A bit immature, a bit prima donna/me first, but didn't need to stand for some of the jealous, mean girl treatment she got.
Poffenbarger left for a few reasons, I think. She wanted to be nearer home, she didn't like getting yelled at consistently by her position coach, and she didn't want to play another year with Spencer. It wasn't just Scott who didn't like her.
Spencer left for money, plain and simple. She said so.
Dauda left because she didn't want to be the only good player left on the roster, and for better money (anything, literally, was better than what Arkansas was able to offer players last year). She barely gets scrub minutes at SC, which is really unfortunate.
Wolfenbarger - that's a different story. Lots of blame to go around here. She (and her family) did have beef with Neighbors, who they thought wasn't developing her to be a guard well enough. She also had some outside basketball things going on that interfered with her focus. A change of scene was probably what she needed. Though ... playing for Mulkey doesn't seem to have really upped her game all that much. At least she has accepted that she's better suited to play closer to the basket, which she would
never have done at Arkansas.
Neighbors is responsible for the culture in the program, and he put too much faith in his seniors to keep things under control, imo. It blew up last year. And the crap recruiting the past two years just left the squad a shell of an SEC team.
Neighbors hasn't had any money to recruit since Scott's class signed. Which is why this year you had foreign kids and JUCOs mostly, and next year is two foreign kids and one pretty decent US player - and why he missed out on the top US kids he was going after (esp Snead). He claims that the Rev Share plan will allow them to be "
uber aggressive" in the portal this offseason. We'll see.
