Who said that we'd need him to be an upgrade from Black?
We just need him to as closely replicate Black's production as possible. And of all other options out there on the recruiting trail, he would undoubtedly get us the closest.
Make no mistake.....Jordan Caroline would be a bigger impact next year than Ayo. He might not replicate his Nevada numbers, but we wouldn't need him to do so. We just need somebody to give us ~10 points and ~6 rebounds a game from that position, and I think he'd be perfectly suited to do at least that.
The Alstork comparison isn't fair for a number of reasons. One, Nevada isn't Wright State. Caroline has played against legit competition, and has excelled against it.
28 points against Rhode Island.
21 points against TCU.
26 points against San Diego State
22 points @ UNLV
29 points @ San Diego State
25 points against San Diego State
14 points against Bamba and Texas
Alstork had no such track record.
If anything, the Ray Rice example is probably more appropriate. He made the transition from the MVC, and did quite well here. No reason to think Caroline wouldn't.
But all of this is probably moot, because there is absolutely no reason to think that he's transferring.