I don't disagree that we have had some under achievers. However I have constantly questioned how we have played some of these players. There is no way we shouldn't have gotten more out of Jeremy Richmond. You cannot sit him behind Bill Cole and expect to win in the big ten. Also, Michael Henry really developed his game after he transferred to DePaul. When did he ever get a real chance at Illinois. I would remind you that if he could have gotten more time with Richardson and Paul he could have made a real difference. All he ever got was a few minutes here or there. Alan Griffin is going to haunt us this year. Look at the numbers he is putting up on a pretty good team (Syracuse) because he is getting playing time. I know Adam Miller is supposed to be a future NBA player, but this year there is no comparison between him and Griffin. So some of our fans can say what they want, but we have had some players that were never put in the position to get the most out of them. Also, in today's game I saw where one of our fans complained about Hawkins having trouble guarding Harper Jr. They said he couldn't stay in front of him. (1) Hawkins is just a freshman and Harper is one of the best offensive players in the Big Ten if not the country,. (2) Harper had 6 points in the first half and not all of them were against Hawkins. He scored over 20 the second half while Hawkins never got off the bench. We need to get more playing time for players that have the potential to make a real difference. I do feel that Underwood is doing a better job this year in getting Curbelo minutes. A lot of fans had him way down the chart for playing time, but this kid is a real gamer. I have yet to see anyone prevent him from getting into the lane.
I know you said there's no comparison between Adam Miller and Alan Griffin but just for S&!ts and giggles let's compare them anyway. Here are there respective stats:
| PLAYER | MIN | PTS | 3PA | 3PM | REB (/40min) | AST / TO | AST (/40min) | TO (/40min) | STL (/40min) |
| Alan Griffin | 226 | 116 | 49 | 19 | 53 (9.4) | 0.955 | 21 (3.7) | 22 (3.9) | 8 (1.4) |
| Adam Miller | 248 | 88 | 47 | 16 | 17 (2.7) | 0.750 | 9 (1.5) | 12 (1.9) | 7 (1.1) |
Right now Griffin is shooting 38.8% from 3 and Miller is shooting 34%. However, the sample size is still low and if Miller were to make his next 3 shots he would have 19 of 50 attempts compared to Griffin's 19 of 49 attempts. So at this stage in the season it's too early to tell who the better 3-point shooter is, although Griffin has a slight lead.
Both players are a liability with AST / TO ratios under 1.0 but Griffin is averaging 3.9 TO/40MIN while Miller is only averaging 1.9 TO/40MIN. Also, since turnovers tend to lead to fast break / higher percentage shots from your opponents they tend to hurt a team more than an assist helps. Therefore, I'd give Miller the slight edge here due to the better ball control and significantly fewer turnovers.
Alan Griffin has 53 Rebounds for Syracuse which is impressive, and he's almost certainly a better rebounder than Adam Miller but he's also not playing alongside Kofi Cockburn (99 REB), Ayo Dosunmu (72 REB), or Da'Monte (52 REB) anymore. Alan Griffin's 53 Rebounds are 18.4% of Syracuse's team rebounds but when Alan was on the Illini roster he only brought down 10.4% of the team boards. While he may have improved, it's likely that a big part of his increase in rebounds is due to a decrease in team ability to rebound. That being said, Alan showed he's an elite rebounder last year and Miller hasn't shown a knack for it yet so this one clearly goes to Griffin.
What's not shown on the stat sheet is defensive ability and I think that in that category Adam Miller is Alan Griffin's equal. I'll admit I've only watched 2 Syracuse games this season but what I saw seems to be pretty similar to the defense he was playing at Illinois which was mostly good, but not great. Both players also have approximately the same number of steals. If NCAA basketball tracked which player allowed the opponents points it would be easier to identify defensive ability, but for now based on the eye test alone I'd call this a tie.
Ultimately, I'm not at all surprised Griffin transferred. Syracuse is clearly willing to play him 32.3 minutes per game despite his team high 3.1 turnover per game and <1 AST/TO ratio which has allowed Griffin to increase his scoring to 16.6 points per game even though his scoring per minute has effectively not changed from when he played with Illinois (0.514 pts/min now vs. 0.492 pts/min last season). At the end of the day, Griffin looks to be the same player he was on the Illini team last year - and to be fair that's not a bad thing. I think we'd have another 1-2 wins this season if we had Griffin on our roster and we'd probably still be locked in as a Top 5 team with a better chance at winning it all this season. However, Griffin's role would have been very similar to what he had last season with ~20 minutes per game, even if he was in our starting lineup. Maybe Griffin would have started over Miller, but I think the expectation would be that Miller would be a serious threat to take that starting role from Griffin and Griffin was looking to go somewhere that his place in the starting line-up was more secure.
In terms of comparison with Miller (freshmen) and Griffin (Junior), Griffin is currently the better player, but that's not so surprising considering we're only about 1/3 of the way into Miller's freshmen season. Both are good 3-point shooters, both have some defensive weaknesses, Griffin's more prone to turnovers but also pulls down significantly more boards. I think if you look at there stats at the end of this season or next season the comparison will shift in Miller's favor as it is obvious (at least to me) that Miller is further from his career ceiling than Griffin is. If losing Griffin is the sacrifice we had to make to get Miller to play for us this year and next, I'd say it was well worth it.
