Mahaney had 17 in the URI exhibition on 6-9 shooting. Diarra played well off the bench. Seemed like we had good pieces in place. That lasted five games - basically until Memphis punched Aidan in the mouth - and then we made the switch.
Stewart started for 6 weeks with Liam out. And he started a couple games with Alex out. He had his chances to take on a larger role.
As did Nowell. The first guard off the bench role was there for the taking and he didn’t take it. I wanted it to happen, but it just didn’t. He wasn’t ready. I’m tracking point guards in the portal because I saw nothing out of Nowell that leads me to believe he’s capable of getting the keys next year. If he comes back a new player and wins the job over a portal guy, great. I’ll hop on board. But we better get some competition since I didn’t even see flashes out of him where I thought “he’s going to be really good once he figures it out.”
The problem with these arguments is people are creating fictional versions of players. There’s some version of Nowell in people’s heads where he’s Kyle Lowry if only he got more of a chance. Or if we didn’t sign Cam Spencer and played Jayden Ross last year, he’d be All-Big East. It’s hard to argue against a hypothetical. In reality, those guys had chances to step up and didn’t seize them. And if they don’t respond to that challenge, they are probably not the guy we want with the ball in the second half against Florida.
