An interesting comparison...

I have heard many times that all the players that left Bradley when Jim Les was hired as head coach in April of 2002 would have made a fine team and would have been stars had they all stayed at Bradley. That may be true, but until now, I had never actually seen the numbers. I had never actually seen the statistics to argue one way or another. Speculation is one thing, but real facts can hardly be disputed.
So here are some real fact that show the production of the players who left Bradley vs. the players who stayed at Bradley and who got to play more minutes because those other guys left. I will also add the actual numbers for those departing players both before and after they left Bradley. Make what you want of it, but the guys who stayed behind did put up some pretty good numbers that certainly rivalled anything the departing players did after they left.

Scholarship player who left Bradley (not necessarily right away)
just before or after Jim Les came onboard (six of them)
Danny Granger
--total Division I production before leaving Bradley (2 seasons): 592 pts, 318 rebounds, 37 assists
--total Division I production after leaving Bradley (2 seasons at New Mexico): 994 pts, 463 rebounds, 117 assists


Mike Suggs
--total Division I production before leaving Bradley (3 seasons): 476 pts, 283 rebounds, 39 assists
--total Division I production after leaving Bradley (1 seasons at Central Mo., which is NOT D-I) 0 pts, 0 rebounds, 0 assists


Joah Tucker
--total Division I production before leaving Bradley (1 season): 139 pts, 114 rebounds, 27 assists
--total Division I production after leaving Bradley (3 seasons at UW-M): 1416 pts pts, 513 rebounds, 191 assists


Antoine Tisby
--total Division I production before leaving Bradley (1 season): 33 pts, 29 rebounds, 1 assist
--total Division I production after leaving Bradley (2 seasons at South Carolina): 376 pts, 230 rebounds, 21 assists


Joey Paul
--total Division I production before leaving Bradley (2 seasons): 141 pts, 70 rebounds, 30 assists
--total Division I production after leaving Bradley (2 seasons at Mo.-St. Louis, which is NOT D-I) 0 pts, 0 rebounds, 0 assists

Andre Corbitt
--total Division I production before leaving Bradley (2 seasons): 246 pts, 162 rebounds, 60 assists
--total Division I production after leaving Bradley (2 seasons at West Florida, which is NOT D-I) 0 pts, 0 rebounds, 0 assists

All six guys combined stats:
Before leaving BU: 1627 points, 976 rebounds, 194 assists
After leaving BU: 2786 points, 1206 rebounds, 329 assists

Now, the guys who stayed and who produced for Bradley....Cello, Faulknor, Gilbert, Gillingham, Stewart, and Suggs for 2 years before he left also (and you could count Paul, too..but I won't)
Their combined production after Coach Les arrived was...
2881 points, 1204 rebounds, 572 assists

So the guys who left generated -
2786 points, 1206 rebounds, and 329 assists elsewhere for other D-I schools, while the guys who stayed generated -
2881 points, 1204 rebounds, 572 assists ...remarkably similar and perhaps a BIT better numbers than the guys who left..

So you can spin it any way you want, and I chose to count the production of the six players who left vs. the six who most likely got the playing time that would have otherwise gone to those guys who left....and yet the total production is so remarkably similar that it argues pretty strongly that maybe we didn't lose as much as people are fretting about.
It's not a precise scientific argument, and I know Danny Granger lost some time on the court due to his transfer, and the guys who ended up at D-II or juco also lost some production, but hey, if they found their niche at D-II or juco then just maybe they weren't too worthy of playing and would not have been all that likely to produce at D-I.

I think these numbers are a powerful argument that Coach Les did the very best he could have been expected to do in a terribly difficult situation that happens to all new head coaches when the previous players leave. Coach Les found a way to get the same production out of someone else as he might have expected to get out of all those prima donna who bolted for other programs.