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Message: [QUOTE="champs99and04, post: 2339780, member: 488"] Vital and Jackson were not better than Facey or Brimah last season. Jackson was a horrendous defender and probably a net negative player overall and Vital was probably average at best on defense and didn't start shooting the ball well until conference play. Purvis was arguably better than both of those two as well - even though he had a historically bad shooting season he was a beast defensively who looked like he should have been playing safety in the NFL. To some extent I agree that it will be tough to gel immediately given the roster turnover, but at the same time I think that's a bit of a crutch in an era of college basketball where it's the exception and not the norm to be retaining a large portion of your roster. We return our leader, best player, and floor general in addition to a ballsy sophomore who played nearly every second of our biggest games last season and three talented red-shirts who at the very least have been around the program for over a year, practiced for a month, and gotten game experience. I'm not expecting us to be the best team next season, but there is no reason we shouldn't be ready to go for day one and I don't think the unbalanced schedule is a great excuse. [/QUOTE]