EagerFan said:

I think this season will be the next big referendum on Collins as coach. How will the team do without Boo? Can this crew can get NU into top five or six in the B1G this year and make the dance?

Things look great right now and I get the enthusiasm itt, but we can all also agree that Lehigh wasn't much of a test. I'm very optimistic, but I almost always am at this point in the season.

Click to expand...

If he can make the top 6 and dance again this year we need to even further elevate our perspective of him, because that would be deeply incredible, to lose a player of Buie’s caliber and immediately reload.

The available choices for this century are:

Didn't/Barely played at NU
Gary Lee (MD Eastern Shore), Chier Ajou (Seton Hall), Johnnie Vasser (Tennessee Tech), Rapolas Ivanauskas (Colgate, Cincinnati)

One or two seasons at NU
Kyle Rowley (St. Mary's), Kale Abrahamson (Drake, Duquesne), Isiah Brown (Grand Canyon, Weber St.), Jared Jones (Middle Tenn., San Diego St.), Casey Simmons (Yale), and Julian Roper (ND)

Three or more at NU
Aaron Falzon (Quinnipiac), Jordan Ash (Wright St.), Barret Benson (S. Illinois), Anthony Gaines (Siena), Pete Nance (UNC), Miller Kopp (IU), Robbie Beran (Va. Tech), and Ryan Young (Duke)

I guess you could make an argument for Ryan Young, though he was surrounded by a ton of talent. Jared Jones became a pretty decent player in his 3rd year at Middle Tennessee and is now in his 6th year of college at San Diego St. Kopp's final year worked out well for him once he was the 5th option on the court instead of the top. Isiah Brown improved a lot by the time he got to Weber St. Rap had one good season at Colgate but couldn't replicate it the following year.

So yeah, not sure there's a real great answer.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

SmellyCat said:

I was thinking about this today when someone mentioned Roper at the end of the ND bench, but are there any transfers who have gotten better after leaving NU? Sure, some have gone to better team situations, like going to North Carolina or Duke (though you can argue that NU did better in those years than UNC or Duke did after Nance/Young left), but did any become better? I mentioned on another thread that I hate that other schools get the best years of a player that NU develops, but then I couldn't think of any good examples. We really do a good job of holding onto our stars and rarely have to have the pain of watching them excel elsewhere.

Going back to the 1990s, we had Geno Carlisle and Rex Walters, but am I forgetting anyone since then? Has there been a player this century who did so well at his new school that we really really wished he were still in purple?

Click to expand...

Back to the OP, it seems Geno and Rex were the biggest transfers out. The rest who left were not missed really.

PurpleWhiteBoy said:

I have to admit I was wrong about Roper. Thought he was going to be a big loss.
Had the talent, but I guess the desire isn't there... or Shrewsberry has a bunch or good players.
Looking back though, Collins gave him lots of minutes as a freshman, but Roper made little to no progress his sophomore season.
He, like others, wanted to get up and down the court.

Click to expand...

He was a significant loss for us but it did not work out as well for him as he imagined

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

I think this season will be the next big referendum on Collins as coach. How will the team do without Boo? Can this crew can get NU into top five or six in the B1G this year and make the dance?

Things look great right now and I get the enthusiasm itt, but we can all also agree that Lehigh wasn't much of a test. I'm very optimistic, but I almost always am at this point in the season.

Robbie Beran also did the "grad transfer out" routine, following directly after Young and Nance.
Would it have been nice to have him last year?
Have to think he would have been ahead of Blake Smith and Justin Mullins for depth after the injuries.

And, of course, I wish Ryan Young had stuck around. Nicholson and Young would have been a nice platoon at the 5.

Nance? I'm okay with his departure, given Collins' "stretch 5" vision at the time. If Nance and Young had both stayed, Nicholson may never have played. Of course, if Collins had put Nance solely at the 4, with Beran backing him up, that could have worked... with Barnhizer playing the 3 much of the time and Berry, Buie and Audige getting lots of minutes. Hunger and Martinelli would have sat on the bench.
I think its fair to say that Nance's departure was the catalyst for the team's switch back to a defensive mindset and subsequent success.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

This is premium content. Please subscribe to view.

macarthur31 said:

During the Collins era, I always wondered "what-if" for Rapolas Ivanauskas as he had a compelling tool-set (and embodied Collins' affinity for stretch bigs). Even though he was a key player at Colgate, he was "a guy" against kenpom Tier A+B teams - in 6 games in '19 (NCAA-bound Red Raiders Squad), he had a 84.3 ORTG, 3.9%OREB, 18.2% DREB, 17-41/41.5% 2FG, 4-14/28.6 3FG. For perspective, 'Cats played 21 of 34 games last year vs Tier A+B teams, so in essence analogous to a B1G schedule.

He closed his D1 career playing 16.3% Min for Cincinnati, which was kp113 rated, and mid-tier in the American Athletic Conference - and he actually left the squad to play pro ball in Lithuania during that season. Which was understandable as I believe behind the scenes was tumultuous that season.

Maybe if we go alt-universe and pulled the grad transfer after 4 healthy years at Colgate, he may have been a solid contributor? -A notch above Tydus? He remains a pro in Lithuania, so it verifies he's got some chops.

Click to expand...

Wasn't Rap POY in the Patriot one year?

When he went to Cincy, his numbers seemed to confirm what you mentioned, at a higher level he was just "a guy".

But it bears saying Cincy was going through some 💩at the time. Rap jumped ship, early in the season, before an all out scandal that ended with the coach being fired. I think the official story he told is that he had the chance to play professionally in Lithuania (I believe he does not count towards limits on foreign players as he as citizenship).