The crazy thing is, we are having the type of success we have seen, and we still have not had prototypical guys for this style of play. Big men who can shoot halfway decent from outside, can penetrate off the dribble, and are strong rebounders and defenders. Guards who are 6'4-6'6 who can light it up from the outside but are big enough to penetrate and shoot over the bigs. This is not to take away from any of our current players or past one's, but many of Oats acquisition's in the past have simply him going after the best players he can possibly get because we haven't been able to be as picky as we would have liked to be. When we can hand select a roster and have the fluidity and explosiveness that this offense provides and are big enough to defend, we have a chance to be untouchable. Sears is a great example. He will go down as an all-timer, but his limitations (size) were visible throughout his career. The problem is, many of the guys I mentioned (6'6 guards who can shoot and drive) won't be in college basketball for very long so keeping a roster intact will be a struggle. Should be interesting to see how Oats builds this team moving forward. I expect some major moves on our end.
We are basically in a "one a done" roster era.
But you are right concerning building that roster. The longer we keep producing winning results the easier it'll get for us to "pick and choose" the guys that best fit the roster.
You are also right that CNO has basically piece-milled his rosters with what he could get.
In terms of prototypical guys, I'd argue we've had just a handful of players that perfectly fit his system:
Brandon Miller and Noah Clowney, who played on the same team. We won the reg. and conference championship with them. Verified results!
And Philon may be the only other "perfect" fit.
We haven't had the perfect 5 for his system yet!
Not sure we've had the perfect 2 either. As you say, it would basically be a 6'5" Sears. Youngblood would be close with his 6'4" size but his offensive production hasn't been as much as some thought.
