Fair enough. We've been there. In 2009 we were the best team in the country, dammit, and then Jerome Dyson went down for the season. Thankfully, we were a deep enough team, and it happened early enough, that we somewhat recovered, and made the Final Four. But I still firmly beleive we win the whole thing with him.
I think, without Niang, your team's ceiling is the Elite 8. Without him, you can still beat UConn, because we don't exploit the interior. That changes when you're going against Virginia or MSU.
UConn has been inconsistent on offense enough where I don't quite know what their ceiling is yet.