Bolton is a good player but the 7 NCAA tournament teams of the Hoiberg/Prohm eras were absolutely loaded at the guard position. He would have played but no chance of being a starter.
I don't know. Bolton is
really good. He'd be even better if he had a real PG around to feed him and he could slide into a defined SG role, and if the offense had more things to worry about then just him.
He shot 40% from three last year. You know Hoiberg would have wanted to use that chess piece.
2012 = I bet he would have started over Chris Allen, but not over Scott Christopherson and Chris Babb
2013 = Korie Lucious probably breaks a tie for being a "natural" PG, but even if Bolton wouldn't start over Chris Babb and Will Clyburn, I would imagine he would play starter-like minus off the bench
2014 = Bolton would have started over Thomas and Morris, at least to start the season, but I would imagine he finishes out the year starting while freshman Monté keeps coming off the bench
2015 = Bolton is better than was sophomore Thomas, so having Bolton around would have given more of an option for another guard if BDJ was not behaving himself... but I don't think he starts
2016 = Bolton might not have started over Thomas and Nader, but he would have played starter-like minus as a sixth man behind Matt, especially once Naz went down... he's way better than Hallice Cooke... and having Bolton this year would have had a godsend considering how little depth that team had
2017 = probably stuck on the bench again, could have competed with Jackson for the "bench gunner" role
2019 = Bolton probably should have started this year over THT... Wigginton and THT both had a lot of talent but struggled with productivity and consistency, which makes Bolton better
So of the seven years...
Starter = 2012, 2014, 2019
Sixth man = 2013, 2016
Role, but limited = 2015, 2017
His role would have depended a lot on the needs of the individual rosters.
Naz was stuck behind Chris Babb, Korie Lucious, Tyrus McGee, and a (pretty good) junior Bubu Palo. Any one of those four would be starters for us now and probably push Bolton on being our best player.