Whenever a player transfers or leaves early, there is always the loss of what was and the loss of what could be.
What hurts about Cole leaving isn't what he gave us this year being gone. It's that he was an option for a whole that we have, that now we have one less option for. I liken it to when Haywood transferred last year. Would Haywood, as he was last year, have helped us much this year? No. I doubt he would have played much over Usher or Bubba with how he played last year. However, he had the potential for more, to give a sharpshooter off the bench that could provide a scoring threat that we ended up lacking. That's what we lost. Another option that could have stepped up. If Cole isn't here next year, I doubt very much that we miss the production he gave us this year. But it's very likely, as it currently stands, that we'd miss having him as an option to turn to, because now our hand is pretty much forced.
Of course, this does open up the discussion of what other players could we bring in, recruit or transfer. Maybe a nice 4* shakes loose late and our late surge helps us get an in. Hell, maybe Clemson fires Brownell and PJ Hall reconsiders his decision. At the very least it opens up one more thing to talk about to help kill time in the offseason.
