Wiltjer would have likely had the same role as he did on the Championship team with the starting front court in 2013-14 consisting of Randle & WCS.
What one single player not returning
- Thread starter Gromcat_rivals
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Yea, or slightly more as I mention. Lost by 6 due to bad shooting in the title game, so he well could have been the difference, hypothetically.
Losing that game had a lot to do without WCS and the ankle injury. Randle certainly wouldn't have been sacrificing minutes at the 4. Would've been too slow for the 3. A role like in 2011-12 would've been great for that team knocking down shots but he made the right call for his career seeing the writing on the wall getting recruited over.
Oh no question. He made the right move. Again, was just answering the hypothetical with the best I could find (since I’ve been watching), aside from the obvious Meeks
I get you, I think that's all that anyone can do in these types of threads. Just pondering myself how lineups would fit with the personnel on each team like I do each year when a player leaves and how they would've helped that next team. Kyle was one hell of a college player and it was great that he was able to blossom into what many thought he would be out of HS as the leading scorer for Gonzaga. Give you a lot of credit for coming up with a different answer than mentioning the same ones as everyone else. Surprised no one said Quickley, there was definitely a role for him to knock down shots on the last 2 teams.
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Great name, it’s just that the team the next year only won 9 games lol. He may have made one of the the biggest “non championship” differences though.
Side note: How sad is it that I have trouble remembering players/teams from the last 3-4 years but can recollect from 02-17 or so with the best of them? I’ve been partly checked out/distracted with life, and also just getting old lol.
Every one thought Ralph Sampson was coming to UK with Bowie that would have been an unstoppable team.
Ray Allen on the 1995 team.
Allen as a Cat means we beat UNC, Arkansas, and UCLA for the title.
Allen as a Cat means we beat UNC, Arkansas, and UCLA for the title.
Might not have lost a game all season. The 95 team lost 4 regular season games by a total of 10 points.
Jodie Meeks not returning Cal's first year definitely cost us a title. That team STILL should have won it regardless. But with Jodie.....my goodness....hide yo wives hide yo kids.
Get past Michigan St and there’s one loss Duke followed by two loss UConn. Even if Sr. Ron Mercer is on that team with Nazr, those are two coin flip games.
Fair point from a 1 year standpoint. Definitely was one of the biggest difference makers on the 2019-20 team coming back with his return. Very likely could have made a championship difference last year which is why I made sure to include the past 2 seasons. He would've been a senior last season and been what this team needed with a spark offensively once all of the guards were getting injured. I do relate to that a little bit myself, much easier to remember players back then in all sports that I watch. Just enjoyed sports in general so much more back then.
As far as a returning player that could've made a championship difference on the next team, PJ Washington. Imagine him on the 2019-20 team if there was a Tournament with PJ as the stretch 4 over Nate Sestina or Keion Brooks at the 4. Like many of the names suggested, a return was never really possible after his sophomore season but definitely wasn't a one a done.
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I agree with Meeks. That was about as close to a guarantee as you get. 2 that I have always regretted leaving early were Isaac Humphries and Dakari. Not only would the team's been better, I think their future would have been better.
I’ve always thought Trey Lyles would have made that 16 team a completely different team.
Wall, Bledsoe, Meeks, Patterson and Cousins as starting 5 - That’s definitely a title team.
He wasn't. He almost left after Sophomore year. I went to an autograph session to meet him that summer of '93 after he was drafted. It was a forgone conclusion he was gone Junior year.
That wasn't possible. Mash would have been a Senior in '93-'94...year we lost to Marquette.
Dakari in '16 is a not so obvious one. We had a good team in '16 but lacked a big since Skal was a flop. Put Dakari on the blocks and Bryant doesn't have a field day in 2nd round.
I think we could have at least made FF that year....maybe not sure fire title.
I think we could have at least made FF that year....maybe not sure fire title.
He's silly. Don't worry about it. He must not had his fentynal today and in withdrawals.
Dakari is always the first guy that comes to mind when i think about this now tbh. But i don’t think he guarantees a title. We’re quite a bit better with him though. I don’t think we lose to UCLA or Ohio State. And again we’re probably talking one seed with like 4 losses going into the tourney.
That would have been a fun team:
Epps
Delk
Allen
Rhodes
McCarty
I bet you anything Pitino goes small with that group.
Allen probably costs us Derek Anderson on the 1996 team, but I could have lived with that. With Allen, I bet we still land Mercer, too. Mercer was willing to come here with potentially Rhodes and Anderson on the roster; one would think he'd do the same with Allen on the roster.
Another interesting point: Allen obviously would have left UK after the 1996 season, so we might have had back-to-back titles at that point in 1995 and 1996. Does Rhodes take the redshirt in 1996 if he knows there is no Anderson or Allen on the 1997 roster?
Can you imagine a 5th year Rodrick Rhodes playing alongside Mercer in 1997? At the very least, Sheppard doesn't get redshirted and he comes back to help lead UK to a potential three peat (don't think Allen/Sheppard were mutually exclusive, even though that's the official story). Pitino also likely adds another wing guard to replace Allen/Delk.
It probably costs us the 1998 title (with no Sheppard on the 1998 team), but we likely get that '95 title and also the '97 title as well.
Plus, Ray Allen would have been a fan favorite. He was truly the "one who got away" in the 1990s.
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Ok back me up a year to 1994. We had a decent team easily could have made a final 4
Except we wouldn’t have had Bledsoe if Meeks had returned. Bledsoe committed late after Meeks announced that he was leaving for the pros. And I’m pretty sure that newly wide open starting spot in our back court had a ton to do with why he chose UK. If Meeks was staying, then Bledsoe likely would’ve committed to Florida (who I recall was his close second choice) or someone else.
That was a Meeks OR Bledsoe situation. We weren’t getting both.
Meeks did declare almost a month before Bledsoe signed but he didn’t hire an agent. So there was still a possibility he could return.
I don’t know that Bledsoe would have been against playing with Meeks. But i imagine Cal probably did sell Bledsoe and his high school coach on him starting. I remember his high school coach kind of going on a rant when Wall signed. He clearly didn’t like it at the time. So yeah i can only imagine if Meeks had come back too he might have tried to get bledsoe to back out and look elsewhere.
Bledsoe himself just seemed to really want to play for Cal.
Now Xavier Henry might have caused some problems. John Wall eventually admitted he did not want to play with Henry because he thought Henry was selfish and he told Cal that and also brought up that he bledsoe and cousins had all agreed they’d have to sacrifice shot attempts for the good of the team and each other and they didn’t think Henry would be on board with that.
I'm not sure that's true.
Meeks announced for the draft but didn't hire an agent. He did that in early April. Bledsoe picked Kentucky in early May, knowing Meeks was still possibly returning. Meeks didn't make his final decision on the draft until June.
I've never heard that it was a mutually exclusive choice between the two.
This would not have been a title team most likely, and it’s two players not one, but Teague and Lamb coming back for that 2013 team with a healthy Nerlens might have been a pretty damn good team. They only left because of the title win IMO. Both really should have come back. Especially Teague—he may have developed into a lottery pick.
Teague was worlds better than Harrow, and overall he was dependable most of the time. Lamb’s three-point prowess would have opened the court up relieving some pressure off of Goodwin. Julius Mays could have played the 6th man role his talent was fit for, and Harrow could have sat the bench and left.
Teague was worlds better than Harrow, and overall he was dependable most of the time. Lamb’s three-point prowess would have opened the court up relieving some pressure off of Goodwin. Julius Mays could have played the 6th man role his talent was fit for, and Harrow could have sat the bench and left.
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We've had a bunch of guys who, if they had returned, would have been lottery picks or top 20 picks:
Teague
Goodwin
Skal
Vanderbilt
Diallo
Keldon Johnson
Boston
Ty Ty Washington
It worked out well for some of them (especially Keldon), but not so well for others (here's looking at you, Skal).
Nice hypothetical.
Personally, I don’t think Allen would have affected Shep. In 1993, Pitino was trying to get another wing after signing Shep. He even spoke at Charles O’Bannon’s HS basketball banquet trying to get him that Spring.
As for Anderson, I don’t know if Allen would have scared him off. He wanted to be a Cat pretty badly, from what I understand. Anderson knew he could play and knew Pitino played a lot of players.
I think Anderson still comes and maybe Rhodes leaves a year earlier.
‘97 and ‘98 teams are probably the same. The ‘95 and ‘96 are better with Allen.
Purely hypothetical, but that’s a potential three out of four with titles in ‘95, ‘96, and ‘98.
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What about coaches? Pitino stays and we probably win a couple more titles in the late 90’s/early 2000’s.
Downside, he would probably still be our coach and we would be wondering when he will retire so we can get some new blood in here.
Downside, he would probably still be our coach and we would be wondering when he will retire so we can get some new blood in here.
Y'all may think I'm crazy but Marcus Lee. We needed another big man against North Carolina and with him and Fox and Monk we win it all.
If we are considering guys who seemed like a lock but went elsewhere costing us a title too then you have to throw Zion in there. We were 30-7 without him but could have been a legit contender with him on the roster.
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