There were many days over the past two seasons when I would sit in the Finch Center and watch Doneal Mack singlehandedly win scrimmages for Memphis’ second team. For the sake of the kid, who everybody around the program liked personally, I held high hopes that he would do the same during real games. Unfortunately, the difference-maker potential that Mack displayed during practices never materialized during his two seasons with the Tigers.

Mack’s career at Memphis came to a close on Thursday when he decided to transfer. LSU, according to my sources, is his likely destination. The reason? Playing time, according to his father, Greg Mack.

I had heard rumblings from as far back as the USC game — when Mack played just six minutes — that there were issues. And the situation never really got much better as the season wore on; he ended up playing 12 minutes per game (down from his freshman year) and just 10 minutes total against Texas, UCLA and Kansas in the final three games of the season.

There are certainly two ways to look at the situation. One perspective is that Mack did not play more because he was not physically strong enough to defend, didn’t get to enough loose balls and wasn’t efficient enough as a shooter on most nights to warrant more minutes. The other perspective is that Mack was marginalized as a 3-point specialist and didn’t get enough opportunities to play through mistakes or bad shooting nights.

Having watched Mack in almost every practice of his career at Memphis, I always thought he had great potential as a long-range shooter. But I did not see it translate to the court. At the level Memphis is trying to compete at, going 2-for-7 from the 3-point line in 15 minutes — a fairly typical Mack stat line — is not good enough. Last season, Mack shot just 36 percent from the 3-point line, which was disappointing in my view, especially considering how many of his makes came in garbage time. Had Mack shown a knack for making clutch jumpers — I remember a couple wide open looks in the second half of the Tennessee game, for instance — I’m positive he would have played more.

Though I know Mack was disappointed in how his year went, I thought he would stick around with the opportunity next season to play a bigger role if he improved his game and showed some dedication in the weight room. Within the past 48 hours, however, I had gotten signals that the situation was perhaps beyond repair, moreso with his father than with Doneal.

Coach John Calipari simply isn’t in position right now to project minutes. Too many unknowns. Two years ago, Memphis went through the same situation when it lost Rodney Carney, Darius Washington and Shawne Williams. Calipari threw it wide open, and guys like Chris Douglas-Roberts, Antonio Anderson and Jeremy Hunt grabbed leading roles and made Memphis into an Elite Eight team once again. The same process is going on right now, and Mack had every opportunity to be a part of it. But there are no guarantees, especially with a talented freshman class coming in this summer and probably another one after that. Hopefully, for Mack’s sake, he’ll land at a school where he can become the focal point of its offense. If not, he probably would have been better off sticking around.