Hawkins and Willis were seniors, but they still played behind Fox, Monk, Bam, Briscoe and Gabriel until Cal gave up on Wenyen in 16/17. But also, thanks to a bunch of recruiting misses, the 15/16 and 16/17 teams were extremely thin. Hell, 15/16 didn’t even have a center beyond Skal.
Bottom line is Derek and Hawkins were still backup players and they got to play because there was nobody else.
Cal has options this year. Allen sits while all his 5* guys get to play and the second string guys struggle to score AND defend. At least Allen can score.