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Great overview. I agree with it 100%.
I would add a couple of things. After coming off the high of the NCAA’s with the Duke win, and really only a half away from the Sweet 16, this season was a crushing disappointment. I have no doubt that with a healthy CJ McCollum, we are playing in the NCAA tournament tomorrow or Friday. I truly believe that we would have had a great shot to run the table in the PL. CJ was playing at such a ridiculously high level before the injury. He knew that nobody at the college level could contain his game. This type of team only comes around about once in a generation, and we really never got to see the finished product. After the CJ injury, we battled, and played well, for the most part, but we still struggled to get our new core (GK, HG, BB, and MM) on the court, night in and night out. Those 4 were warriors this season, especially Gabe and Holden, who had great careers and reached significant milestones at the end of the season (1,500 and 1,000 points).
I will always look back at this season as the one that got away. I remember posting prior to the season that we had been lucky that CJ had 3 injury free seasons, and had played about 100 games without missing one and no injuries. Well, it caught up to him and Lehigh. He played a ton of basketball 18 months prior to the injury, and his body just broke down at the wrong time. I still think he will be a very successful pro. He has the ability to score the basketball in a number of ways, at that is at a premium at every level of basketball. I will always wonder in the back of my head, however, could he have played? Was he still in a boot 11 weeks post injury because he needed to be, or whether it was just being overly cautious, because of his future. I certainly would have liked to see him give it a try for the program, his teammates, his coaches, the fans and the university. He didn’t owe anybody anything, but it was hard to see him sitting there on the bench. Your Ferrari stuck in the garage with a flat tire. But, I can’t really criticize him without knowing all of the ins and outs of his diagnosis, treatment course and prognosis. It may have been a decision made more by his handlers than himself.
Time to rebuild in what should be a wide open PL next season. I think it will be a wide open league next year.
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