Coleman had his good points. He was more athletic, faster and quicker than anyone on the team, IMO. He was, however , a loose cannon, with poor decisions with the ball, and more so with his temper.
In spite of that, I felt he was grossly misused by Wyking Jones. When Jones announced publicly, prior to the first center jump of the season, that "Coleman is our go-to guy," indicating that Coleman would be the player the team depended upon most to score points, I wrote at the time that it was a bad idea, in my opinion. Yes, he was capable of scoring a lot of points in certain matchups, but the way he had scored points all his life was to get into the lane and be quicker and jump higher than his defender. But to tell Coleman that he would be the "go-to" guy on the Cal team, put too much pressure on him, and likely did not endear him to his teammates. That statement told our opponents who to stop in our offense, and most all of them figured it out in a hurry. Why would you telegraph your strategy to opponents before you play them?
Wyking Jones played Coleman in the wrong position, IMO. Coleman realized in high school that he could score, but not shoot threes well. He played a year in JC to get ready for Division One, and what he worked hard on there was probably not threes, but point guard skills, and he raised his assist totals quite a bit from high school. He realized that he was not going anywhere in this game as just a scorer, and his best chance was as a point guard.
I would have started him at point guard. Wyking Jones let him have the green light shooting threes. I would not have let him shoot threes, maybe one or two a game, that is it. He was a great penetrator, who could make some shots in the lane, but who needed to learn point guard skills and court vision. But I would still have played him there, because he had the strongest dribble, the best handle, the quickest first step of the other choices. I did not know what McNeill could do, and it is hindsight for me to say he should have been the SG and Coleman the PG. But I did think it from the beginning. It was good to hear that he volunteered to play PG and let McNeill play the SG. I don't know if Coleman could ever learn to see the court and pass well. Most good point guards learn that early in life or are born with it. But I'd rather have seen Coleman as the leader of that team, if there was an offense to actually run. Wyking had two ways to use him: give him the green light, or try to rein him in have him just standing there passing around the perimeter and hope McNeill or Sueing or Lee could score one on one. Either way, it did not work. I know Jones used Coleman as a backup PG for McNeill, but it is not the same as starting him as PG, and giving him an offense to lead. That would give DC more confidence.
He was a head case, and I don't know if he will ever get past that. But he usually busted his butt on the floor for Cal, and I wish him the best on his next team.