Is the size of the team. Towards the end of Stew's tenure and even Duryea's, the players were much smaller on average. I remember one of the first years in the MW watching them play UNLV in the Spectrum. They were so much longer which gave them obvious advantages.

There were 9 guys under 6'5" or under Duryea's first season and the same as Stew's final year. There were 8 his final season. Today there are only 4 and most are listed at 6'5". Don't know where he is finding these vertically enhanced people, but I notice that we are generally bigger than most teams.

I really hope we can hang onto Craig Smith.

Yep especially at the wings.

Seems like we had some teams with 6’2” or 6’3” wings that would simply have no chance against teams with length.

Now we can trot out a lineup where our shortest guy is 6’5”

The game is changing with the all emphasis being placed on threes. The trend is to play man to man defense and switch every screen. That can be difficult if you don't have some size at every position.