Before this last week, Marshall had only lost one significant building block (Austin Reaves in 2018) to a transfer. Of course, that changed when Burton, Stevenson and Sherfield decided to leave despite all playing at least 24 minutes per game and combining for 57 starts this past season.
“Of course you don’t want to see that many guys leave at once, but you also don’t want to see that many guys stay that are unhappy with their role,” Marshall said. “You’re saying those guys played 24 minutes a game, but what I’m telling you is that’s not enough. They weren’t pleased with that. My job is to try to win and their job is to try to play as much as they can.”
Marshall said he made a mistake in his roster construction, a problem that originated in the 2018 offseason when WSU graduated six seniors, Landry Shamet declared early for the NBA Draft, Reaves was a surprise transfer and C.J. Keyser was ruled academically ineligible. That forced Marshall and his staff to fill nine scholarships in one offseason.
After hitting on three guards — Burton, Stevenson and Dexter Dennis — in the 2018 recruiting class, Marshall followed that up by signing three more highly touted freshmen in the 2019 recruiting class: Sherfield, Fernandes and Tyson Etienne.
It was the most talented depth Marshall had ever assembled in a backcourt, which he thought would be a team strength. Instead, it became the biggest issue for the team. In trying to satisfy all of three of his point guards, Marshall in turn fully satisfied none, which led to Burton, Sherfield and Fernandes pursuing opportunities to be full-time point guards elsewhere.
“There was some inherent competition there,” Marshall said. “Maybe the sophomores thought they had done something when they made the run last year in the NIT and then all of a sudden these highly touted freshmen come in. It was very difficult to keep everyone happy.
“I didn’t do a very good job of managing the personalities. We basically had 13 starters. We had a lot of really, really good players. But you can’t play that many, so no one was happy.”