My first thought is Khalid El-Amin for sure, Why? Because we had him, and lost him, and he didn't give UConn 2 years, he gave them 4 years and almost single handedly transformed UConn from a wannabe program into an Elite program. Missing out on Khalid was the first straw that broke the back that was the RISING Gopher bb program. And the reason we lost him was indirectly related to why we lost everything, that being his fight with Russ Archembald(sp?), as I remember wondering if Clem had kicked Russ off the team for that incident, might that have inspired El-Amin to stick to his commitment to us?
BUT, we are Minnesota, this is not a state that conspires together to cover up cheating in favor of winning, and the cheating was already going on, kicking Russ off the team may have inspired him to blow the whistle on the cheating going on even sooner than it got reported, and even if El-Amin played 4 years for us, helping to lead us to much greater heights than we achieved, maybe even a Natl Title? All that would have done was make more for the NCAA to take away from us.
So I'd say missing out on Webber might have been the bigger miss. Why? Clem once stated that it was his frustration with the lack of local talent and the pressure to repeat his early success that led him to resort to cheating to keep the players he was able to recruit eligible. Had he brought in Webber, the success the team may have had for the next 2 years may have given Clem the mojo needed to bring in other top notch recruits in the following years, and MAY have, and I emphasize only the possibility, that it MAY have kept Clem from resorting to cheating? Because landing a guy like Webber at that time may have led Clem to not need to resort to recruiting a loser like Russ, and may have made it easier to keep someone like Khalid around, especially with no Russ on the team to get in a fight with him.
But my gut feeling says that even landing Webber may not have prevented Clem from resorting to cheating and here in Minnesota, that would have gotten sniffed out eventually. So I have to say that I think our biggest miss is Tre Jones, as landing him would have had the biggest and longest lasting LEGITIMATE positive impact on the program.