I hope I am wrong about Casey but I can’t see it. People like to compare him to Hall, but Hall was a much better shooter early even though he wasn’t great. He worked at it and developed into a shooter but Hall had a much higher baseline to start from. Casey has to improve a lot just to be a decent shooter.
I want Casey to succeed, but facts are facts. We can’t go three years in a row without backcourt shooting. It is unrealistic to expect Murray and McCorkle to be ready for heavy minutes at the 2 next year. And Morsell can’t shoot. I would be shocked if they don’t bring in a transfer to bridge until Murray and McCorkle are ready.
If JAR stays I expect he will see a lot of minutes as the sixth man at a minimum, but I see him as more of 3/2.
I don’t want anyone to transfer. But Tony did tell Jesperson the truth and he told Shayok the truth. The truth is Beekman will be a better pg than Kihei next year and if we play Reece at the 2 another year I would have to think he is a transfer risk. We cannot have another year of no shooting. One of the two PGs has to start and one has to be on the bench. If one of them is ok with that great, I would be thrilled. But that isn’t the way it works in reality. Everybody wants to play. I don’t blame them.
While I agree with this I’d rather give them too much time than not enough time. If we start Reece at the 2 with Kihei and bring in a guard transfer they might not see the court at all. I think that would be bad for the future of the program. Need to get them some experience so when Reece gets full control in 22-23 we are back in position to contend for a Final Four.
Starting Clark and Beekman together would not be a rebuilding year. It would simply be a placeholder year and waste the talent on the roster. Morsell, McCorkle, Jabri and Murray should get all the 2/3 minutes. All of them if Murphy is gone and 60 of the 80 minutes available at those 2 spots if Murphy returns. (Murphy = 20m at the 3 and 10m at the 4)
I don’t want Morsell to be Hall anyway. Here are Hall’s career NCAA Tourney numbers in 7 games.
7/35 FG’s (20%), 1/17 3 point FG’s, 6/18 2 point FG’s, 19 assists and 10 turnovers
Yeah I mean I’m sure when people say they want Morsell to be like Hall that they mean they want him to follow his exact shooting numbers in the postseason
Yeah, Hall’s UVA career in total isn’t super impressive. But he worked and worked and is one of the clearest trajectories of a player getting better every year that you’re going to see and it was really fun to see him get drafted. By his senior year he wasn’t a star or volume scorer, but he was above-average to very good at everything except shoot in the NCAA tournament.
But only the NCAA tournament. In the ACC tournament he was solid. Over his career in the ACC tournament Hall hit 10/20 3s and 13/28 2s. Fun random fact: During their respective UVA careers, Hall attempted almost as many free throws during the ACC tournament (18) as Guy (11), Jerome (7) and Diakite (1) combined (yes, Diakite only attempted a single free throw, ever, in the ACC tournament. It was during our loss to FSU in 2019. He made it). Just to round things out, despite only playing in the ACC tournament for 2 seasons compared to 3 for everyone else (Hall didn’t play in an ACC tournament game his Freshman year), Hunter attempted 28 FTs during the ACC tournament.
Getting drafted in the 2nd round (during a commercial. ugh) will probably end up having been the high point of his basketball career, but that’s a heck of lot more than most folks can say.
I think Beekman will be really good next year. I think McCorkle will turn some heads (both shooting and driving similar to KG). I think McKoy could be a double-double guy and team leader with energy, good attitude and competitive fight. Assuming Trey leaves for the NBA, I have no confidence in the rest of the roster…… TB needs to add some athleticism to the roster. Although I’m hopeful for Jabri and Murray from a talent perspective, I don’t think they can be counted on as “go-to” players next year. I think we need a transfer that can start and carry a heavy load.
Do you think Keels has already made up his mind or does Jabri transferring move the needle towards us a little bit? Does it at a minimum make him think about it a little more?
I’m speculating but I can’t imagine there’s any positive.
I doubt that Keels saw Jabri as a roadblock. Positionally wouldn’t make sense and not sure you fear a guy that played only with walk-ons.
As a recruit, it has to be concerning to see two high level guys not succeed and leave. And also not draw playing time whatsoever this year. Think an argument can be made that Virginia will develop you on their schedule and to their mold, but less flexibility to draw up offense or let you fail to succeed.
But I don’t think any of that is news to Keels. Speculating.
For now it’s panic time. Likely to lose top 3 scores as well as hit or miss marksman, role playing guard and our highest ceiling recruit. No positive way at all to spin this, next season could be the worse of the ‘normal’ Bennett era without several transfer home runs.
