Over the past four seasons, there has been a rough trend for ASU basketball fans. One has been, aside from the James Harden days, mediocre basketball. The other? Players leaving the program.
According to CBS Sports' Jeff Goodman, forward Kyle Cain is leaving Herb Sendek's program to go to another school after his sophomore year.
Cain makes the second player from this year's team and 11th in the past four years that have decided to leave the program for one reason or another. Chanse Creekmur left recently to pursue a football career.
This trend is exposing an issue that Sendek and the Devils have.
From House of Sparky:
The deeply troubling trend of players departing the program under Sendek continues. The coach addressed the trend earlier in the year, saying that the transfers at ASU were about playing time. However, that is something that doesn't seem to fit in this case, and the sheer number of players leaving is certainly of a grave concern.
Why do these players leave? There are a lot of reasons why kids change their minds, but it points to some flaw in Sendek's recruiting.
On the topic of playing time, either he is not getting players talented enough to play for him more, or he is promising them more than he can give.
If the kid is just wishy-washy, then the flaw is that Sendek is is recruiting those players. It is either that or he is not building these kids up to want to stay.
If they don't buy into the program, then he is misrepresenting what he is selling.
In any case, something is wrong. We all know that college kids are not always reliable. But this is a clear trend of kids not being happy at ASU. But Sendek has to do better at getting players that have the talent he seeks that will not be happy.
In the case of Cain, perhaps it has something to do with the suspension he received early in the season. We can understand that. However, again, he is getting players that get in trouble, or they are not buying into the program.
The solution? Who knows? Sendek is here for a while, having had his contract extended.
But it sounds like he either needs to recruit different kids, change how he sells it or change the program.
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