Fun game. Cole was 1st team all league in new Big East and led us to a fairly high seed, so anyone that didn't achieve something equivalent is pretty easy to say that Cole is better.
I'd say...
Sterling Gibbs (shout out Purvis for reminding me that Gibbs was the lead guard that year over Jalen Adams)
Alterique Gilbert
Based on production and achievement you can debate Jalen Adams also, but that would likely be a matter of opinion. Marcus Williams and Taliek Brown weren't all league, but their teams were too good to think that they weren't better than Cole.
There were times last year when Sanogo was in foul trouble and RJ was the only guy trying to score. That should never have been his role on the team, but he took it in stride, and turned it into 16 points a game and BE 1st team. I’d say he met or exceeded expectations here, since (hopefully) nobody expected him to drop 20+ a game like he did at Howard.
I think his role in his first season was a much better fit for him. Secondary perimeter scorer who is a hound on defense and brings maturity. Sure his FG% wasn’t good, but now we know that it wasn’t because of a lack of skill. Maybe just needed a year to get adjusted. He wasn’t able to play that role when Bouknight went pro
He’s not better than Jalen Adams because he wasn’t supposed to be a Jalen Adams. Jalen Adams is better at nearly every part of scoring than RJ and had the green light to take every single shot, yet RJ still got within 1 bucket per game of Jalen’s career high PPG
So no, RJ isn’t on the level of the Adams or the Napiers or Bouknights. Maybe not even Vital. But I’d still say he did his job and did it very well