Well that's the thing, I mean there's lots of reasons the program is where it is right now - and one of them was just cast off - but a lot of those reasons are still in the program.
I'm not lighting the kids on fire - they're trying; but they've either been poorly coaches, haven't lived up to the hype, have been hurt, haven't put the effort in themselves, etc. Choose whichever one of those reasons and you can literally apply one or all of them to every guy returning on the roster. And while Hurley coming in will help a lot - it's not going to necessarily fix it.
The one area I do think we stand a chance of being very, very good is the backcourt. We have ostensibly the best player in the conference in Adams and I'm not sure there's a PG in the conference with as much potential as Gilbert. On their own - they should be able to steal a few wins as they're the two guys who are that good. I've always liked Vital as a role player and I think Smith gives them some good depth as a 3/4th guard. Anything from Brendan Adams is a big plus. To me - the back court is as good and has as much upside as any of the back courts we'd had on good-ish Calhoun teams. I have absolutely no worries about our guards.
Everything else though... it's a walking, talking lottery ticket.
The front court is just not good. Yakwe is a shot-blocky guy who should help defensively, but gives you next to nothing offensively. Carlton showed signs of being really promising at times last year; at other times looked completely lost. Diarra is hurt. Cobb is half a year or so removed from almost being thrown off the team. He looks interesting at first glance but you get under the hood, and you're looking at a JUCO guy who was as JUCO as JUCO comes. So of four guys in your front court - one guy is off the board immediately (Diarra), one guy you can genuinely see making it at this level and competing (Carlton) and the other two are bit players at best. Even IF Carlton turns into Thabeet overnight, there's just not enough depth there. To have something *kind of resembling depth* you need MULTIPLE things to go right and even if they do it's still probably not enough. Again, I'm hopeful and encouraged by the efforts and attitudes these kids are all showing, but at the end of the day you have the talent or you don't and I just don't think any of these guys brings a lot to the table.
To me, it's the forwards will make or break the team's fortunes, IMO. Sid Wilson could be a huge get. Polley and Whaley showed stretches where they seemed to be talented but raw players and other times just prospecty guys who didn't have a clue. Those three guys though - if they can be competitive, we can play postseason basketball. They're all good enough to take a step forward. But there's also enough track record of not producing results to make me be really skeptical.
So in a nutshell:
Backcourt - Excellent
Front Court - Bad
Forwards - Take a guess
My last thought on it all is that there's a big piece of me that really wonders if we know anything about how good any of these guys are if for no other reason than the fact that Ollie was that bad of a head coach. These kids were basically coaching and trying to develop themselves the last few years. So who knows - a little direction and structure could make a real, legitimate difference. Part of me is kind of hoping for that. But it's also worth noting the depth of the damage Ollie did to the program the last 3 years or so - and that it can't just be undone magically. And the tip of that damage comes from bringing in players that just aren't good enough. Great kids, sure - but not good enough.
Hurley's job will be to get every drop of basketball he can out of the mediocre guys and develop the young talent as quickly as possible. Love everything he's doing so far, but if this team wins 20 games this season and makes a nice little NIT run, I'll be over the moon. Anything past that is pure gravy.
So I dunno. I think this is genuinely a 2-3 year rebuild.