I love this kid. He’s a special player.
I voted Mullin but by the numbers it might be Omar Cook: 15 points, 9 assists, 3 rebounds. Probably that's inflated because the team was garbage, but imagine how many assists he'd have had if he wasn't passing to Alpha Bangura and Donald Emanuel.
What happens if you switch Cook with Barkley? Elite 8 team better? Worse? Same? In your opinion.
Probably pretty similar.
Worse. Cook is the only player I've seen to finish 2nd in the nation in assists, yet played totally selfish ball, especially down the stretch that year.
I look at his assist numbers that year, and I almost think he got an assist on every pass he made. I know I was complaining that he shot too much, and he show WAAAAAAYYY too many three pointers for my liking.
After that first game against Kentucky, I thought he'd take us to the Final Four in his sophomore year. By February of his freshman year, I was kind of hoping he'd go pro. If you watched the games, you could tell there was tension between him and his teammates (although tension between Barkley and Bootsy didn't stop us from winning the BE tournament the year before, but that was one incident, by all accounts).
In fairness to Cook, the rest of the team was out of shape, and he was lightyears ahead of everyone. Just imagine how many assists he'd have had if he went to Uconn, Nova or SU. Cook had Willie Shaw, Kyle Cuffe, Anthony Glover and Abe Keita to finish his masterful plays. Yikes. No wonder he left.
Cook,if I remember correctly, wanted to go to North Carolina or Kentucky, but neither would take him. I doubt the reasons for that had anything to do with his ability (recruiting against those teams back then, was nothing like it is now).
As far as his "bad"teammates that you mentioned, well, Marcus Hatten took that same group to the NCAA Tournament the following season, so either his teammates weren't that bad, or (the more likely scenario) Hatten fit in more with the team concept.
All I know is, I did not shed a single tear when Cook left. And no, I don't think he and Hatten would have made a super backcourt, because both needed the ball in their hands to be effective. Hatten and Ingram had some trouble playing together the following year because of that, though they did get it right come March.