Black leaving is not a terrible loss, Trent was a better defender, and his scoring will be replaced. Who will be the banger inside is yet to be determined. We have some time, a new faces to try and find a answer.
Any way you slice it, Black leaving is a terrible loss.
We may be able to replace his offensive production, but we will be hard pressed to replace his offensive efficiency -- and given that our defense will likely continue to be inefficient inside -- those possession matter.
Simply stated, the team next year would be better with Black than without, under just about any feasible scenario. He was a force offensively that is difficult to replace, and notwithstanding the defensive liability and foul issues, as a coach you game plan around things you can count on (and can count on the defense reacting to), and we could largely count on Leron on the offensive end. Towards the end of the year, we knew we were going to Leron, the opponents knew we were going to Leron, and he still was relatively efficient offensively. Losing one dependable offensive option on a team with a paucity of them is not beneficial.
Having said that, there is also the fact that without regards to next year's potential, we are nowhere near the "elite" level we seek, and it may be better for our long term prognosis to take a small step back next year from what we may have had with Leron in order to have a more sustained rate of progress going forward. Since under most scenarios, we are not a tourney team next year even with Leron, and under the most optimistic scenarios, we are a borderline tourney team, I'm not sure it is as big a loss as it may otherwise be, given that our goal is to be a consistent Top 25 program.