They say that hindsight is 20/20, but in theory, shouldn't wearing your glasses make near-perfect vision the present?
Sometimes not all of us are responsible in wearing those glasses. Sometimes, it's like we don't have a pair of eyes at all.
When Terrell Stoglin was shining right in front of us at Tucson's Santa Rita high school, there wasn't much anyone could do to shepherd the 6-foot-1, 185-pound guard to the Arizona Wildcats. We all saw that it should be a sure-fire, mutual interest, but that was never the case between Stoglin and Arizona.
Now, it's a matter of wondering what could have been should the best men's basketball player from a Tucson high school since Sean Elliott had chosen the Wildcats.
Stoglin, in his second year as a Maryland Terrapin, is blossoming. Through nine games and a 6-3 record, the guard is averaging 22.2 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game, doubling his point production since his freshman year. In perhaps his best game of his career, Stoglin dropped 31 points on Big East's Notre Dame, and ND coach Mike Brey proclaimed him the "Microwave of College Park" a hat tip to former NBA player Vinnie Johnson, who could light up the scoreboard in a short amount of time.
So you've got to wonder 'what if?' What if Stoglin had not committed just a week before Sean Miller was named Arizona's new head basketball coach? What if there hadn't been two interim head coaches in two years at Arizona during the crucial wooing period of his junior and senior high school seasons?
Everyone's glasses were on. You knew that no matter how poorly-ranked Stoglin was because of his size, no matter the uncertainty, he should have been chased by the Wildcats. Only, there wasn't anyone in place to chase him.There were no set of eyes where it mattered.
From afar, you could see it coming, though. Arizona had no shot at Stoglin. Two years ago, it was too unstable of a future for a guy who was built on proving people wrong. With no head coach in place and already years of recruiting mistakes in place, Arizona wasn't as elite as it seemed.
Now at Maryland, Stoglin is the Terps' best scorer AND best passer. It's an awkward role that the Testudo Times compares to that of Kemba Walker, who led his team to a national championship in his last season at UConn. Though it's a problem to find an identity, it's not the worse problem to have -- problem, being, a very talented player.
And with coach Mark Turgeon supposedly trying to figure out how to handle Stoglin, it's a wonder what would've happened had he come to Arizona.
Remember, Sean Miller isn't exactly so keen on having his point guard launch 20 shots per game, either. A former point guard himself, Miller sliding Momo Jones into a point guard slot last season can be juxtaposed to Jones' year at Iona in 2011-12, where he's shooting 12 shots per game compared to just eight with the Wildcats last season.
It's likely Stoglin would have been in the same position.
As a gunner at the local parks or rec centers, I can tell you that it's not easy to take the shot out of a shooter. Stoglin will have some growing pains if he decides he wants to define himself as a pure point guard. If he hangs tough with Spurgeon or not is still up in the air, writes Don Markus of the Baltimore Sun.
Either way, it's an interesting tidbit of Wildcat and Tucson history that landed Stoglin in far-away College Park.
But with the reported interest of Arizona in Stoglin's mind pre-college decision, you know that the under-recruited guard from Tucson has a chip on his shoulder.
You wonder if and how that chip would have molded him had he been recruited by Arizona. And you wonder where it'll take him after this season and beyond.