Rodney Purvis played 102 games at UConn. His record in the postseason is 9-3. He competed his tail off on both ends, exuded charisma and leadership no matter how bad things got, and played his best ball in the biggest games. He played on a conference tournament winning team, won an NCAA tournament game, and developed into an all-league caliber defender by his junior or senior year. Was never the biggest fan of him as a player, but when he left campus you heard his footsteps.
Larrier has played 30 games at UConn. He's 13-17 in those games. The team played better without him last season and his absence has hardly seemed to matter this season. He floats on defense, has never been particularly interested in rebounding, and manages to hoist as many inefficient shots as possible. Unlike last year, the season is already over and everyone knows it.
I could wish him the best of luck but it would be a lie because I don't really care. He sounds like a good guy and I certainly don't wish any ill on him. If he goes on to make it in the NBA, maybe I'll hypocritically latch onto the bandwagon and pretend I always liked him. Save that, I don't know what to tell you. The dude had some bad luck with injuries and I feel for him on that. But there are a lot of guys I feel for and there are a lot of guys who would love to play basketball at UConn and most of them will be just as foreign to me as he was. It's almost like this season didn't happen. Maybe I should do the polite thing and wish him luck and move on, but I'd rather this than make a false equivalence to other guys who actually played here and mattered. It isn't his fault that I feel this way but I do. I don't have any attachment to him one way or the other because he never...did anything for me? I think I probably feel the same way about him as he does about me and that seems like how it should be.
