Still hoping the Justin Taylor momentum can come back around after watching Connor Shellenberger dominate the lax tournament.
Wasn’t Connor the #1 recruit in his class? But I get it though, the “hometown hero” sentiment.
Yea he’s a borderline generational talent lol so wouldn’t expect Taylor to match that. But having a Charlottesville kid play a large role on a Final Four team would be special.
It would definitely mean a lot to some in the community. I remember actually watching a lacrosse game between Notre Dame and UVA and the guy who scored the winning goal or something for Notre Dame was from Western Albemarle. Hope it doesn’t sting the same when Justin has a hot shooting night against us when he’s at UNC/Cuse/maybe VT.
I certainly understand why but still surprised by lack of targets. I feel like we’ll see half dozen offers go out in July but that we’ll be playing catch up in most of those recruitments.
Feels almost inevitable doesn’t it? A lot of talent heading to STAB these days so hopefully one of those kids will fill the right role in the right class.
It probably won’t be as bad as watching Donald Hand Jr suit up for Tech and then seeing his Dad with Tech gear on.
We certainly seem to have our eggs in only a few baskets. This could get dicey haha
I think we are going to see a lot of new names, a lot of unheard of recruits blowing up etc. Its going to be a wild summer. I also think our staff is much more active in terms of recruiting players (just without the offers but does that even mean much when they see coaches giving them their time) that us fans aren’t aware of. Offers are sparse, but Ive seen us linked as being in contact with like 20-30 different players so it’s not as small a basket as we think it is.
@HoozGotNext Any reason why we are still recruiting Dereck Lively? He is literally the perfect big for what we want to do on offense and defense and he even speaks highly of Virginia. But he’s been pretty vocal about wanting to be a one and done to the point where it even turns off Duke and UNC fans (who think he’s a two-three year player as well). I think his mom works in an NBA front office as well.
Also I know powerforward is the priority for 2022 recruiting, but if kadin bounces in a year or two from a blow up season, we would need a 2022 center regardless? It’s going to be interesting how all of this shakes out
Oh I don’t know they are that much. He’s an easy guy to offer and recruit this summer because it doesn’t require much effort to do that. Chances of getting him are probably slim, but you can figure that out later.
Disgusting
I will say though Creighton’s Jerseys are a million times better than ours. I can’t believe at the beginning of all of this I was one who was like “you guys are over-reacting we will love these jerseys eventually” only to end up being the biggest hater of the new jerseys. They truly are god awful.
yeah we lost a lax game in OT to duke this year and a STAB kid scored the winning goal (in Cville). Luckily we had our own STAB kid lead us to the title so i’m happy with how that worked out, but i agree it would suck a lot to have Justin, a former high school teammate of Tony’s son, light us up.
Dereck Lively highlights vs Team Loaded. Again a long shot but is that perfect modern big who can shoot, rim protect, hedge, and roll on screens. Doesn’t demand the ball in the post too much.
“They have a lot at stake, more than any July I can remember.”
@HoozGotNext - can you expand on this?
then there’s joe robertson for duke who scored the goal to beat us in ot this year lol
Yeah - I was wondering about that statement as well and figured there would be some follow up from HGN.
Not HGN, but I took it as reference to the fact that generally we score commitments from our top targets prior to July. We don’t win many thereafter. This year in particular, we only have one commitment and plenty of roster needs for the future. Not a luxury year .
Add the fact that we only have 5 offers out currently, it seems like the stakes are certainly higher to not only win commitments but also evaluate and gain ground on late risers.
Tony can make something out of nothing but hard work + talent is certainly better than hard work + lesser talent.
I think it’s less “top targets” and more “targets discovered during the year”. I bet there are targets we discover this summer who are higher up in wants than the ones we may have targeted be fore hand.