I’ll just say it - why would you trust preseason whispers from the uva side? Trust what you see with your eyes:
Once again, uva side whispers - Dunn a potential redshirt
Your eyes - 
All this “need to work on rotations” stuff is boilerplate uva staff pablum. It’s not so much untrue as just banal.
My eyes would say Reece, Eli, Dunn, Bond are all good at defense. And IMac has probably improved at defense. The other guys 
My eyes: {watches 40 second practice clip}
Fwiw, I do think groves is probably “solid” or “just fine” on defense. So I doubt he’s a major issue at the moment (but who knows, because we are reading tea leaves because in the offseason Tony doesn’t serve any tea)
Well you could join me on team “why does Tony hate his non local, non rich donor fanbase?” but that does give me a certain rep around here… 
And by my eyes I clearly mean my priors because the footage we have is impregnable
The clearest footage yet
https://twitter.com/uvamenshoops/status/1716804565985591517?s=46&t=bv9cjw4g0eEZorinzCXyaA
For someone with great eye hand coordination I am terrible at that game
Lol ‘teaching’ BB a sport he grew up around his entire life
I only watched a bit of this but it looks like pack line in terms of where the help is coming from:
At 5:45 in the video, all 4 off ball defenders have a foot in the paint.
Tanner Groves was not a good ball screen defender haha.
Edit: Tanner’s plus-minus/on-off numbers look solid defensively actually. Neither here nor there.
Might be because he was the 2nd worst and worst defender in Oklahoma’s rotation the last 2 years - by the numbers. They had to play against high level comp every night in the Big 12 so the ACC may seem easier to him - TBD.
OU may also not have had many high level defenders around him though. I have an inkling having the defenders and scheme at UVA around him should make him better and at least not be worse than the benefit of his offense, which did improve last year over his previous year. (20 points per 100 possessions) – Would have been 6th on last years Hoos.
His true shooting % last year was better than Reece, Kihei, Gardner, Franklin, and BVP.
He was actually their best defender among starters by a mile last year. That was one of OU’s biggest issues last year - 3 of their starters were their 3 worst defenders in a 9 man rotation.
Clearly a mistake to film that. Another mistake to post a link. When the guys switch to volleyball mid season, opponents basically have a blue print and step by step instructions on how to beat them now. What were they thinking filming that?
Also, fwiw, in the few possessions I just watched, Groves defended the center (Cisse?) and also defended the backcourt (switching between both). Looks like they switched everything (again, just in those few possessions). Also showing zone and then switching man… so Moser must be throwing some stuff at the wall to see what sticks.
Yeah the RAPM numbers from Hoop Explorer paint that picture: https://hoop-explorer.com/OnOffAnalyzer?autoOffQuery=true&baseQuery=&calcRapm=true&gender=Men&maxRank=400&minRank=0&offQuery=&onQuery=&showExpanded=true&showGrades=rank%3ACombo&team=Oklahoma&year=2022%2F23&
Hill, T. Groves, and a couple of their bench guys were good, everyone else was slightly above average except for Uzan.
Exactly. Groves being further along than guys who have never played P6 hoops is the expected outcome at this stage. Doesn’t mean it will stay like that all year
Of players getting off the bus and JWilly clapping.
I expect Groves to understand the concepts and have the effort and intelligence to execute them to the best of his limited (compared to Dunn et al) athletic ability. Hopefully this makes him a league average defender, and the rest of the team can carry the D.
BVP walked so Groves can run. Welcome to the new era of UVA bigs.
Below average size, questionable defense, but streaky three point shooting that can really change 1-2 games.
Describes Nolte to a ‘T’. We then went without someone in that role for a few years until Hauser arrived. Hauser of course was an elite shooter, not streaky, but we’ve been bringing in stretch forwards since: Stattmann, Igor, Traudt, BVP, and now Groves all in similar veins.