First of all, I'm shocked to hear Mick admit that he made some stupid coaching mistakes. It was Bulldog and I out on the lonely Jenifer Island all season taking shots from everyone for our positive views of the young man. Everyone in here was abusing us relentlessly for our stance. Jenifer himself was relegated down to basically Quadri's level in here with very few even wanting to see him in the games. And now the coach admits he made a stupid mistake with him.
I'll briefly reiterate again that I didn't just see the typical incoming freshman in that preseason scrimmage last year. I've been watching UC basketball for a half century and I've seen every single incoming freshmen in that time period. Outside of Nick Van Exel and a few others, I don't recall having as high of a first impression with an incoming player as I had with Jenifer. For the first six games or so, if this team had 10 highlight reel moments, Jenifer had 8 or 9 of them. And then Mick shut him down. The creativity disappeared. It was like taking a brightly lit room, and turning the lights down low with a dimmer switch. In the last half of the season, he had zero resemblance of the player I saw early in the season. His leash was far shorter than others on the team. who were missing far more shots, playing poor defense in some cases and having a huge part of why we were under-achieving. But, the difference is, they got to play through their mistakes, and as a result, gained confidence and improved later in the season. Jenifer was not afforded the same opportunity, and consequently lost confidence and all resemblance of what he was when he arrived on campus. I thought all season long that Mick made a huge mistake with him. I'm glad he himself sees the same thing now.