Tyrese Hunter has started all 106 games of his college career. And as a starter, his team has won 6 tournament games (a Sweet 16, an Elite 8 and a Round of 32). On the ISU Sweet 16 team, he lead the team in assists and was 2nd in scoring and minutes. On last year's Elite 8 team, he was 3rd in scoring, 3rd in assists and 3rd in minutes. On this year's team he was tied for 1st in assists, 1st in steals, 3rd in scoring, 2nd in minutes.
TJ Otzelberger and Chris Beard both thought enough of him to make him a starter - and he has proven he can start on an elite team that has success in March. Just about anybody you get in the portal to replace him is going to carry way more risk than they bring in upside. Hunter also has a lot of "dog" in him and can be a defensive menace.
By far his biggest issue is the turnovers. My goodness the turnovers. We have had a lot of players who have had similar turnover metrics, but it isn't really the number of turnovers, it is when and how they happen. For the year, he averaged 2.6, which isn't terrible considering that at their BEST, TJ Ford had 2.5 a game. DJ Augustin had 2.8. Matt Coleman had 2.6.
I still mainly blame our roster composition. We had to have Hunter handling the ball to try to free up Abmas to move off the ball as our primary scorer. I love Weaver, but wouldn't trust him as a primary ball handler against a team like Tennessee. And Horton was also not the answer.