It kind of has/hasn't. There's talent here. Adams has been a flame out and who knows why. But Gilbert is obviously really talented, but he's a first year D1 player for all intents and purposes. Ditto for Wilson. Those guys are legit. Polly can step it up, but he's inexperienced too and not that athletic so he can't do it consistently. Vital is one of those max effort that almost tries too hard sometimes and you just have to take the good with the bad. Those guys can do stuff.
What kills them is depth. There's almost no one off the bench that's good enough to play at a high level. And that depth issue really comes from the patch work job Ollie did two years ago. Then this past year in the transition, we didn't pull in much playable talent, either. So when you basically sit out two years of serious recruiting - when you're acustomed to the talent we've seen - that's going to hurt you - and maybe for longer than you'd like.
So you get this goofy limbo we have right now - where you've got really talented, inexperienced youngsters figuring their life out and under developed role payers who were really lottery tickets to begin with and a bunch of nothing after that. It's frustrating because they're at this place where everything hinges on your youngsters getting better as soon as possible and that's just asking a lot for any program minus a few.
Next year might be more of the same, but you'll have some talent that'll get better and mature and hopefully a lottery ticket that we have now gets a little better. Then the guys who are talented and starting this year, well the guys next year take their place but they're coming off the bench. Then you're in a spot where you can take a step forward. Get another recruiting class after that, well that's when the engine begins to turn over. It's just critical mass.
