It's not realistic to expect we'll retain all the roster if Sprinkle leaves, or even a good share of it. BUT one more reason to hope we can retain some of it is it would raise the bar for the next coach to get a bigger offer, at least as high as the bigger schools wanting an NCAA win. Our biggest problem, besides the fact that our team would be better if we got just ONE of Shulga, Bairstow or Ashworth to stay, is that the story of us being picked ninth preseason cause of returning 0 points, made it look like an insurmountable task for any coach to win any games for us, and made it more impressive for Sprinkle to do what he has done and made Washington interested in him. If we had accomplished what we have so far with JUST one of Shulga OR Bairstow returning, resulting in maybe a 5th place preseason prediction and NO story about us returning 0 points, Sprinkle is maybe on Washington's radar for doing what he has, but they aren't circling in on him the same way they are, before even making official the change, at least not without waiting to see how he does in the NCAAs.

Likewise, if have another exodus of EVERYONE, EVERY POINT scored this year, and have to rebuild again, resulting in another ninth place preseason pick, It again gets easier for the next guy to get a bigger offer out of just a good regular season and also leave us without getting a tourney win. Whereas if there are at least a few guys to build around, resulting in maybe a fourth place pick, the bar is raised enough that just doing AGAIN what we have done this year won't cut it from the point of view of bigger schools looking for a coach, and the bigger schools will want the NCAA win and/or some consistency in more than one year to be interested in him. Of course, the other problem is if we hire the wrong coach, leaving our program where it was after Duryea(and most likely without a Sam Merrill) our program would AGAIN be in a position where winning some games here, even without any tourney wins, would be enough to impress bigger schools for an offer.