Let’s look at the facts. Gregory won 21 games in his final year in 2015-16. Pastner won 21 games in 2016-17 during his first year. He inherited Josh Okogie, Ben Lammers, Tadric Jackson, Quentin Stephens and Josh Heath as starters. I’m not sure chemistry-wise, we had a better team that entire decade, than what we had those two years.
Okay. Lets look at Gregory's last team. Here are the top players, based on minutes per game and their stat lines.
Hunt - 32.4 mpg 16.7 ppg 3.4 rpg 3.3 apg .9 spg .4 bpg
Smith - 30.5 mpg 15 ppg 2.3 rpg 1.9 apg .4 spg
Mitchell - 25.1 mpg 10.1 ppg 9.7 rpg .6 apg .6 spg .4 pg
Jacobs - 22.7 mpg 10.5 ppg 5.8 rpg .3 apg .4 spg .7 bpg
Notice how those are names you did not mention? Because they all ran out of eligibility Gregory's last year and weren't inherited. Now lets look at the players you mentioned.
Okogie never played for Gregory. Counting him as a gregory player is laughable. He was recruited by gregory but, as we saw this year, committing under one coach doesn't guarantee they'll be here under the next.
Ben Lammers - 14.8 mpg 3.6 ppg 4 rpg .5 apg .3 spg 1.3 bpg
Jackson - 13.8 mpg 4.7 ppg 1.2 rpg 1.2 apg .4 spg
Stephens - 20.1 mpg 5 ppg 3.8 rpg 1.1 apg .3 spg .4 bpg
Heath - 17.6 mpg 2.7 ppg 1.1 rpg 2.8 apg .6 spg .1 bpg
Heyward - played 8 games total at 2.8 mpg. Worth mentioning because he was the only other player that returned under Pastner.
There was also Ogbonda and Gueye redshirting that year.
That's what was inherited by Pastner. That is laughably low returning production no matter how you look at it (to put it in perspective those are Rodney Howard level numbers across the board). The fact they won the same amount of games as the previous year despite losing the top 4 players (and James White who was a similar level of production as the ones who returned) is a testament to what Pastner and the staff did coaching wise and it's why he won ACC CotY.
Also what chemistry are you talking about? Gregory's last team had virtually none and the Pastner's first doesn't hold a candle to the Jose/Mose/Ush/Devoe group we had a few years later.
Will see when the season starts in playing a game, but he shouldn’t be judged with a mostly turned over roster other than Miles & Sturdy.
Here is the returning production CDS is working with.
Kelly - 32.4 mpg 14.4 ppg 3.4 rpg 1.3 apg .7 spg
Terry - 29.6 mpg 10.1 ppg 2.8 rpg 1.2 apg .6 spg
Coleman - 27.3 mpg 9.5 ppg 2.9 rpg 1.3 apg .8 spg
Sturdy - 23.9 mpg 8.6 ppg 2.3 rpg 3.3 apg .7 spg
It's hilarious how returning 4 of the top 5 players from the previous year is a mostly turned over roster while losing the top 4 players is the best of a decade chemistry group.
And the roster turnover we did have wasn't forced. CDS either forced the issue or failed to convince them to stay. Pastner didn't have the opportunity to return the players who were the leaders of the team. Not only did CDS return most of the players who were leaders of last years team, there was also the option to return Smith and Moore whose production was easily better than any that were returning for Pastner. The only player who couldn't have returned for us was Franklin.
Had Pastner stayed the expectations would have been for an NCAAT appearances. 4 of the top 5 players returned, the roster turnover that did happen was largely due to the new coach, and most people believe that the roster turnover improved the roster (as opposed to when Pastner took over where the prevailing thought was we had easily the worst roster in the ACC) but CDS has no expectations?