With Mister Jennings going to Science Hill, it got me thinking.

Let's say George Pitts' players would have been a bit better in the classroom and actually- GASP!- eligible for enrollment at a four-year college after graduation back in the day at Science Hill.

It is likely a few would have gone to ETSU under those circumstances.

Let's say Shane Williams and Damon Johnson go to ETSU, which would have been very likely. They would have come in to replace Mister's scholaship, actually.

And let's not forget- ETSU was a significantly better basketball program than Tennessee at that time.

I just went through the records. During the 1994-95 season the Bucs finished 14-14 with three losses by a bucket and another seven-point loss to Tennessee.

The following season, ETSU went 7-20 with six games decided by a bucket.

This is an inexact science to be sure, because while it's easy to say "Johnson and Williams would have pushed the Bucs over the edge to victories in those games" it takes away any accomplishments unnamed players made in their place in close victories that otherwise wouldn't have happened. And Johnson and Williams didn't average 20 points a game between the two of them in their two seasons at Tennessee- though they did improve the program somewhat.

But let's make some assumptions. Let's put the Bucs with three more victories in 94-95- 17-11 instead of 14-14.

Now let's give the Bucs four more victories in 95-96 than the 7-20 that cost LeForce his job.

A disapointing 11-16, but perhaps enough for LeForce to hold on.

Especially when you consider as sophomores perhaps Johnson and Williams could mean TWO EXTRA POINTS in the Bucs' loss to Western Carolina in the '94 Southern Conference Tourney, and three more in '95 in the defeat to Chattanooga. So they would likely be playing deeper in the conference tourney and, who knows, might win the thing again.

How does the future of ETSU basketball change if LeForce continued under those circumstances?

Does DeChellis ever coach here if that's the way it plays out?

And can we blame George Pitts for the demise of ETSU basketball in the '90s and sabatoging the coaching career of a respectable man like Alan LeForce for not doing more to keep his academically viable when he was at Science Hill?