I’ve sat on this thought for a while, but now feels like a good place to share it. I genuinely believe that a lot of work needs to be done in order to rebuild the culture that made the program successful. Between the loss of 5 players after the national championship, the pandemic, and a slew of players who transferred out/weren’t bought in last year, it feels like a lot of the continuity of culture which led to top 10 defenses; really fun to watch, egalitarian offenses; and teams that were never physically overmatched is gone and needs be reconstructed.
This is most clearly evidenced, I think, by the blowouts. From the Tennessee game in 2014 to 2020, I can think of 5 losses which weren’t that competitive: UNC (2017), Notre Dame (2017), Florida (2017), the game which I won’t name (2018), and Purdue (2020). That’s incredible. Meanwhile, the last two teams have lost 8 noncompetitive games. Additionally, the defense has fallen to averag-ish in that timespan, and only two players on this year’s team, Kadin and Reece, played defense even close to UVA’s standard.
There needs to be somewhat of a cultural reset. This involves moving on from the current seniors who were both dead last among rotation players in defensive rating. The lack of physicality of the past two teams can’t continue to be a feature. It can’t continue to be acceptable to play a point guard 40 minutes who hasn’t gotten his turnovers under control in 4 years.
I hope they can reestablish what made the program so fun to watch over the last 12 years. Wahoowa