You guys forgot Diamond Taylor!!!
Definitely not Jordan Caroline and not Dantiel Daniels. Good players but not that good. Caroline was very good as an undersized forward! Aaron Cook? Nope!
Desmar Jackson then Anthony Beane. Jackson was the most talented player since Brooks and Tatum IMO.
I didn't feel like he always played as hard as he could unfortunately. Barry might have had something to do with that!
Jackson should have been 1st team ALL-MVC his senior year. 2nd in the league in scoring, 1st in steals! Freshman All-American.
His sr. year, Anthony Beane had a few games where he looked like a 1st team All-American .... as did Jackson.
Then guys like Lance, Sean O'Brien, Armon Fletcher, Kavion Pippen!
Dantiel Daniels and Desmar Jackson were Lowery commits that stayed on when Hinson took over.
In terms of Jordan Caroline, he averaged 17.7 PPG and 8.6 RPG per game on a team that went to the Sweet 16. Again though, probably doesn't develop the same way under Hinson considering he was not even close to the same player in his Freshman year.
I saw JC play many times. He had some impressive games, but the Martin twins were the stars of that team - both play in the NBA - currently on Charlotte. Had JC been 2-3 inches taller, possibly an NBA reserve.
Kavion Pippen, Beane, Jackson, Fletcher, Jones have also been very impressive at times.
People are way over valuing Aaron Cook. Good player, especially his Jr. year as an assists guy, but not in the same category talent wise as these other guys IMO. Only game I can recall where I thought Cook was really outstanding was at Kentucky, 18 pts, 2 assists, 2 steals, 4 TOs. Pippen was even better that game with 16 pts, 7 rbs, 3 assists, 2 steals, 1 TO. Cook was never a very good FT shooter either, which is a real liability at his position.
And Fletcher had some very impressive games.
One of the more frustrating things I'd personally witnessed over a lifetime as a Saluki fan was watching Hinson roll Caroline out there exclusively as a 5. Anyone could see he was clearly nothing close to a center. He was best suited as a 3 or 4, like he was at Nevada.
Barry and his staff could recruit some talented, athletic players from time to time. Imagine how some of the kids he brought in would look on this current team; Caroline, Fletcher, Pippen, Bol(when healhy), etc. His biggest problem recruiting-wise is he couldn't piece together a truly solid class at any one point. He either swung and missed, or just set the bar way too low to begin with.
That said, his problems went well beyond recruiting. There's no logical reason for a Pippen/Fletcher senior led team to have finished with a similar W/L record to Bryan's first squad.
Great post--I especially like the highlighted statement. So true: there was always someone around who was truly talented, but they were surrounded by players who were either mediocre or who were good but needed more talent around them for what skills they had to shine, guys who would be role players on good teams.
Haha--it's actually kind of depressing to think about this question, as I have really been enjoying not having to wonder about whether the likes of Rudy S., Jonathan Wiley, and Austin Weiher (to name but a few) would pan out in any way!
Anyway, my list, not really in order:
Pippen
Beane
Fletcher
Cook
Olaniyan
Caroline
O'Brien
I included Caroline because the question asked best player, not best Saluki.
If I had to pick one, I would probably choose Pippen, as he's the closest we've come to having a guy the NBA was somewhat interested in.
(Inflammatory political snark)
One of the more frustrating things I'd personally witnessed over a lifetime as a Saluki fan was watching Hinson roll Caroline out there exclusively as a 5. Anyone could see he was clearly nothing close to a center. He was best suited as a 3 or 4, like he was at Nevada.
Barry and his staff could recruit some talented, athletic players from time to time. Imagine how some of the kids he brought in would look on this current team; Caroline, Fletcher, Pippen, Bol(when healhy), etc. His biggest problem recruiting-wise is he couldn't piece together a truly solid class at any one point. He either swung and missed, or just set the bar way too low to begin with.
That said, his problems went well beyond recruiting. There's no logical reason for a Pippen/Fletcher senior led team to have finished with a similar W/L record to Bryan's first squad.
That's because our entire offense was a pick and roll. We picked and rolled over and over until 1) something broke loose and we had a drive to the goal, or 2) we turned the ball over, or 3) the shot clock is low so we have to jack something up. I bet we ran millions of pick and rolls while I was in college under Barry.
Blake Ahearn
Go Dawgs!
The overall recruiting was not all that bad, wasn't great either. The real problem was that the players were never developed for the most part once they were in school. I will say I think Pippen improved greatly during his time with us but far to often the caliber of the team over all usually didn't improve from the start of the season to the end and that is where the mediocrity showed itself. I think I enjoyed watching Fletcher as much as anyone. He had real talent and could have been much better than he ended up with the right coaching.
