Nigel got yanked and never returned to the floor in our last home game against Illinois. When the rest of the RAC and the team were going bananas after Deshawn won the game with his three, Nigel was stonefaced during the postgame celebration. Didn't even pretend to be happy. That was pretty telling at the time. I've seen it before, unfortunately. But, it's also telling that a coach would be willing to make that kind of decision at that late stage of the season, knowing what impact it might have on a player's decision whether to stay or go.
The badmouthing will begin, addition by subtraction, etc, but the bottom line is that on a team devoid of shooting/scoring options, it is a loss and I'd be surprised if we will be able to replace him with a grad transfer of equal potential value to next year's team. I fully understand those that say "it's not about next year" anyway so what's the big deal, but I will always argue that your record always matters if for no other reason that it is the most tangible evidence of progress and makes it easier to sell a vision. So, this is something the staff will need to overcome. We'll just have to sit back and see how the roster shapes up for next season but really assessing how big of a blow this is.
It's interesting that we "invested" two years in a player who only gave us one year on the court. I wonder if the ability of transfers to pack up and leave as grad transfers is going to cause come coaching staffs to think twice about taking regular transfers anymore since they'll have to waste a roster spot for at least two years and potentially only get one year payoff and then "adios." Without the grad transfer rule, coaching staffs had any player who redshirted or already transferred over a barrel. Now, the player has the upper hand assuming he's academically on track.
