This work presents an analytical framework for characterizing the performance of cooperative and noncooperative spectrum sensing schemes by figuring out the tradeoff between the achieved diversity and coding gains in each scheme. Based on this analysis, we try to answer the fundamental question: can we dispense with SUs cooperation and still achieve an arbitrary diversity gain? It is shown that this is indeed possible via a novel technique that can offer diversity gain for a single SU using a single antenna. The technique is based on the usage of a reconfigurable antenna that changes its propagation characteristics over time, thus creating an artificial temporal diversity. It is shown that the usage of reconfigurable antennas outperforms cooperative as well as non-cooperative schemes at low and high Signal-to-Noise Ratios (SNRs). Moreover, if the channel state information is available at the SU, an additional SNR gain can also be achieved.