It came as a bit of a shock and a major disappointment when Aday Mara chose to transfer out of UCLA. Bringing in Donovan Dent was a huge positive. Projecting Dent working with Mara was perhaps a hard vision to behold or maybe not. Mara would still have to improve and perhaps also adjust to an effective penetrating scoring dominant point guard.
Moving forward and the arrival of Xavier Booker we see perhaps a clearer picture of a 6'11" athletic mobile center working with Dent. Booker, like Mara, still has to improve as well as adjust to playing a more traditional low post in order to play effectively with Dent and fulfill Cronin's vision of this team.
So what the Bruins were looking forward to was a 7'4" player with huge potential needing to improve and adjust his game to be effective next season vs. a 6'11" highly mobile, more athletic center also with huge potential.
I was having difficulty envisioning UCLA next season with Mara not being the focus. His potential is tremendous, but IMO his limitations become significant when trying to incorporate his skills and abilities into schemes where he's not the focus and the offense isn't being run through him.
If Booker does improve and is successful at reinventing himself into an effective low post player I find it easier to envision a more cohesive unit of basketball playing in the manner Coach Cronin is more adept at.
There are still going to be a lot of "ifs" involved with next season's team even if Mara had stayed or not, but perhaps UCLA might be better off with a more athletic mobile center with perhaps less potential then trying to meld two elements that perhaps were a bad fit?