P.S.: I am as vulnerable to this unease with the uncertainty and suspense with waiting for uncertain outcomes, as anyone. I don’t like that things have changed over from what they were. Self has gotten a lot of good players in the 20-100 rank and we have won 82%, 11 titles and a ring. Who wouldn’t want to perpetuate and improve on that? I would. I liked getting to know the players. Living and dying with their growth and peccadilloes and so on. I would like for Self to have been able to continue plucking the occasional OAD out of an imploding program, like Xavier and Josh, and continuing to rely heavily on the 3-5 year guys. I liked him putting players like Chalmers in the toughening box on and off for 3 seasons before unleashing them and watching them play brilliantly. But since NBA OAD rule has reached full adverse effect, and the PetroShoeCo-agent complex regime has responded as it has, and since the NCAA got hit with the Ed O’Bannon case, imploding basketball programs seem temporarily a thing of the past, fleeing OADs looking for an honest program non existent, and the likelihood of 3-5 year players winning against 9 and 10 stacks in the Final Four improbable, well, change hurts, but we have to find a path forward through the change and not back.
