I've been thinking the last two seasons that Barnes would probably see it out that ZZ graduates. Also Mashack. He has had a few homegrown guys like JJJ, Santi, even Aidoo before he left. But that is all coming to an end.
Barnes has had alot of success through the NIL era. But the culture and defensive development that he likes to implement is becoming harder to do with guys here for a year or two and gone. After ZZ and Mashack there are no longer any Freshman to Seniors we have on the roster.
And when a guy like Carr leaves in the middle of the season when you are the #1 team in the nation, then it makes it difficult to coach these young guys. They want playing time and money or they will leave. They don't value the development factor. They aren't willing to stick around and go through the offseason bootcamp Barnes likes to put his players through. So Barnes is left to get guys in the portal. Which is helping from an offensive perspective, but the effectiveness of those guys is becuase of defensive players like ZZ and Shack doing alot of dirty work. Once we lose those guys, I'm not sure how things will go in the future. That's my long drawn out way to see that I could see this being Barne's last year.