I don't know where I have ever suggested that only having 8 scholarship players, with 4 of them being freshmen, is good or ideal or anything even remotely positive.
All I have said is, with the exception of Newman, none of the kids who left would make a difference between winning and losing. If they had stayed and DP was forced to play them, we'd still be in a less-than-ideal situation because most of those kids clearly were not good enough to play on the level we need them to play. I stand by that belief.
Because of the mess they inherited, the staff had to sign a bunch of kids in the first couple classes and hope they'd develop. Some did, some didn't. That's how it works. Unfortunately none of the bigs panned out.
Dave has taken a long-term view of program building, focused on instilling his culture, and (other than Reuter) avoided transfers and JUCOs. By doing it differently, could he have gotten a big who would be ready to contribute something now? Perhaps. Perhaps not.
Agree or disagree with his philosophy, this young 8-man roster is what we're left with.
I choose to focus on the positives here because the program is headed in the right direction overall.
Does that mean progress/development will always take a straight line upward? Nope.
But there is zero comparison to the obvious downward trend line that occurred as Hewitt ran out of Larranaga players and had to win or lose on his own.
For some reason, you seem to want to rub my nose in sh!t. That's fine. Rub away.
