I have to say this season was extremely disappointment for me, but I have confidence in Pastner. The team overachieved in season 1, and season 2 was always projected to be rough, but this year was supposed to be a bounce back year, and it was not.
At some point I just could not watch some of the games anymore. The team easily should have won at least 5 more games. I'm not sure how much confidence I have for next year. I'm just not sure the guys currently on the roster give me any kind of hope. I'm just not sure how good they are. To be honest I've never thought this team had that much talent from year 1-3, a lot of good players but nothing great. Josh and Jose are the only players who stuck out to me. Many of the players this year, showed some flashes but I just was not impressed for the most part. Jose was the only one I thought played great for stretches of games. Banks, Devoe, Alston, and Banks were disappointing for me a lot of the time. Gaye was ok. But the season was almost over before the other guys started to show some promise, then once Jose kind of fell off the season was over. Then a lot of the games we lost were just head scratchers: missed three throws, missed dunks, missed lay-ups uncontested, guys just losing the ball, missed open 3's, bonehead decisions. I'm not sure you can do much to coach that up. At times I wondered if any of these guys are truly D1 or ACC starters.
Maybe some of the returning guys will make some big improvements, but they worry me. I would likely only be hopeful about a high-ranked recruiting class. Josh can do it. He can get tournament-level talent. I think he might have to change his recruiting strategy. He loves 3-4 year guys. He loves the idea of "get old and stay old," but I guess every 3 years or so you cannot be scared of those 1 year guys. Look at at his previous school. Memphis was filled with 3-4 year guys. They bring in Rose and they have a historic season. You need it in the ACC. You need great talent to get you to the top half. With the talent we have the players and coaches have to have a great night every night. Coach K or a Duke player can have an off night or a bad stretch of games because they have so much talent, but even they looked weakened when two good players went down. When I look at Kentucky they seem to underachieve from all the time, then all the sudden they start tearing it up. Cal doesn't all the sudden do something special. That talent just takes over when it has to