[TheWildJacko]

Is no one considering injuries as a factor?

• We lose our 3 best players to graduation/transfer.
  
• We lose our starting PG to injury a few games into the season.
  
• We lose Harriel, one of our main backup PGs, to injury/illness for most of the middle/back half of the season.
  
• We lose our current leading scorer & rebounder, and pretty much our only true post threat, to injury for most of the back end of the season.
  

That would decimate any team, but one also going through a coaching change as well as a league change that forces cross-country travel for 50% of conference games? The odds were never in our favor.

This team has plenty of talent but they never had a chance to gel.

Depends on the argument you are making.

On one hand, neither Lepolo or Harriel move the needle much on most of the key team issues - turnovers but that is really it. Neither would have made this a top 25 team, or would have salvaged any of the 10+ point losses.  And they mostly won while Nunu was hurt.

On the other hand though, you could argue that Lepolo maybe swings things the good way in say 2 of the closer losses - pick from LSU, SMU, Kal2, Clemson1, UNC - and that 2 more wins maybe makes the tournament. Fair.

I am still though much more in the “on one hand camp.”

I agree with 81alum - losing Lepolo for most of the season and Harriel for half the season did make a difference to the team. No, they wouldn't have been a top 25 team, but I could see 2 or 3 more wins. They both know the Princeton and Talana can run it well. One of the problems with the offense this year is that it ran too slowly. (Yes, we need to get rid of the Princeton...) When we were able to run the offense faster, we played better - Talana could have helped with that. She is also a better defensive guard that most people think...she was covering Jaelyn Sherrod last year and doing a decent job before she was injured.

Depends on how quickly the new players can learn the Princeton. The Princeton got us the most recent championship (though the season definitely had its share of ugly turnovers).

Right. We won in 2021 with the Princeton. But we also won with almost everything we didn’t have this year:

- A #1 do-everything recruit playing at/near the peak of her abilities
- A generational post talent in Brink
- Veteran leadership, including a talented, athletic SR PG and 2 extremely scrappy, sharp-shooting, athletic Hull twins
- Lockdown defenders (Anna Wilson, Brink + aforementioned Hull twins)
- Talented and/or experienced bench (Prechtel, Belibi, Jump, Lacie, Jerome)
- A longtime, HOF coach

There were of course the COVID travel issues—hard to say how that adversity matches up with the travel issues we experienced as a rookie ACC team, but at least we knew our conference opponents.

ETA: We also had a heck of a lot of luck! We won our two Final Four matches by 1 point each with our opponents just barely missing final shots. How many shots of ours went in and out of the basket in our last several games this year? I think a fair amount.

[TheWildJacko]

Is no one considering injuries as a factor?

• We lose our 3 best players to graduation/transfer.
  
• We lose our starting PG to injury a few games into the season.
  
• We lose Harriel, one of our main backup PGs, to injury/illness for most of the middle/back half of the season.
  
• We lose our current leading scorer & rebounder, and pretty much our only true post threat, to injury for most of the back end of the season.
  

That would decimate any team, but one also going through a coaching change as well as a league change that forces cross-country travel for 50% of conference games? The odds were never in our favor.

This team has plenty of talent but they never had a chance to gel.

Depends on the argument you are making.

On one hand, neither Lepolo or Harriel move the needle much on most of the key team issues - turnovers but that is really it. Neither would have made this a top 25 team, or would have salvaged any of the 10+ point losses.  And they mostly won while Nunu was hurt.

On the other hand though, you could argue that Lepolo maybe swings things the good way in say 2 of the closer losses - pick from LSU, SMU, Kal2, Clemson1, UNC - and that 2 more wins maybe makes the tournament. Fair.

I am still though much more in the “on one hand camp.”

I agree with 81alum - losing Lepolo for most of the season and Harriel for half the season did make a difference to the team. No, they wouldn't have been a top 25 team, but I could see 2 or 3 more wins. They both know the Princeton and Talana can run it well. One of the problems with the offense this year is that it ran too slowly. (Yes, we need to get rid of the Princeton...) When we were able to run the offense faster, we played better - Talana could have helped with that. She is also a better defensive guard that most people think...she was covering Jaelyn Sherrod last year and doing a decent job before she was injured.

Depends on how quickly the new players can learn the Princeton. The Princeton got us the most recent championship (though the season definitely had its share of ugly turnovers).

Right. We won in 2021 with the Princeton. But we also won with almost everything we didn’t have this year:

- A #1 do-everything recruit playing at/near the peak of her abilities
- A generational post talent in Brink
- Veteran leadership, including a talented, athletic SR PG and 2 extremely scrappy, sharp-shooting, athletic Hull twins
- Lockdown defenders (Anna Wilson, Brink + aforementioned Hull twins)
- Talented and/or experienced bench (Prechtel, Belibi, Jump, Lacie, Jerome)
- A longtime, HOF coach

There were of course the COVID travel issues—hard to say how that adversity matches up with the travel issues we experienced as a rookie ACC team, but at least we knew our conference opponents.

ETA: We also had a heck of a lot of luck! We won our two Final Four matches by 1 point each with our opponents just barely missing final shots. How many shots of ours went in and out of the basket in our last several games this year? I think a fair amount.