a. no one is suggesting that he's a poorer than average big man whisperer.
b. the 2 guys you mentioned weren't worthless. they were both top 100 recruits. if guys like that aren't very good players by the time they're seniors, something went wrong.
c. why did self allow manning to turn griffin into the best player in the country, brackins into a lottery pick, lyons and elonu into fringe nba talents, pittman into a &@#%ing monster, moses into a solid big 12 pf, and even kent into a half decent big 12 big? you'd think he'd try to reserve manning's unique ability to help freshmen bigs improve over the course of their college career for the 'hawks.