I am convinced that the key issue here with Gathers and Wood is the Coach's health. The same goes with any potential new recruits. It is almost impossible to recruit, or keep, any one when no one, including Coach, knows when he will be back. You do not need other coaches talking to our potential recruits, the recruits can see for themselves that Coach is not on the bench so far this season.
Things, recruiting-wise, probably will not get better until after this season when Coach Lavin is back at full strength.
I am not sure why people cannot connect the dots when it comes to Lavin, this season and future recruits.
Most will agree that with 5 freshmen and a JC this season was going to be a challenge and most likely a losing season after the ineligible players and Nurideen Lindsey leaving.
Coaches surgery did not go as smooth as expected and he had complications and returned too early. The good news is with time the wounds and side effects will be minimal and as we know, there are half a dozen coaches who had similar surgery and are all back to coaching.
Lavin is talking to recruits, reassuring them personally. He is at their games. He is going to be coaching the 2012 players, and not Dunlap.
As we have seen with Oklahoma State, Arizona State, Kansas, UCLA, etc. players transferring or becoming ineligible is pretty common this year.
Anyone that thinks the coaches cannot add 3 or 4 players that will be serviceable next year to go with the 7 returning players are just being overly negative. With 10 or more scholarship players next year this team will be highly competitive. Period. As for this years' depth issue, yes we are lean but how many minutes have walk-ons had to play so far? Close to zero. That should tell you how talented these freshmen are!