As glad as I am that we got Cory, still kinda blows my mind that the Fab 5 could have been the Fab 6. Ray Jackson was solid, but not really Cory’s level.
2 Likes
Matt Alosa looks like he’s on the wrong top 500 list. Top 500 CDL drivers? Maybe. best basketball players? No.
2 Likes
Interesting - unless I misread Evan Miya (which is possible) he didn’t have lineup A as registering 5 (which is his lowest filter).
1 Like
YB had everything except for hands. Love his DJ stuff in the early JWilly show. I miss those days!
3 Likes
Hoop Explorer and evanmiya don’t seem to jive 100%. Not sure why. I’ve only ever looked at the free version of Evan Miya.
1 Like
There are plenty of sub points to that hypothetical - but it speaks to the “formula” HGN talks about that we wouldn’t have played especially Lineup A that much given how often we were around it but pretty much insisted that we had to have either Rohde or Harris out there, for the most part.
1 Like
I’m seeing it on the lineups page as having played 23 offensive possessions and 21 defensive possessions (and being good; adjusted efficiency margin of +34 per 100 possessions).
When is that JWilly end of off-season show coming? I got a “Who is this team’s Batman?” questioned lined up.
5 Likes
It’s possible I just lost it in eye blur!
Virginia at 9th. Brendan Marks is such a homer.
2 Likes
Kinda in line with the few model-based preseason projections out there. For this kind of thing, tiers make much more sense than straight number-by-number rankings, because there’s a very large clump of teams that could have legitimate top-4 aspirations.
3 Likes
Yeah I mean Carolina hatred aside I think it’s fair to say Dook and UNC are 1 and 2, they’re by no means 100% surefire things but easily the safest bets on paper.
The rest of the conference is legit a crapshoot and I could reasonably see us finishing anywhere from 3rd to 10th. Think it depends on how much you value Tony’s ability to will us to the top third of the standings no matter what our roster makeup is, along with the hope that at least one player in our rotation will emerge as a go-to scoring option out of sheer necessity.
3 Likes
Yeah, but he’s got other head scratchers in front of us. Also I think there should be a general rule that Virginia’s floor is 6th in ACC with TB. We haven’t been lower than 6th in the last 10 years, and we’ve been 4 or better 9 out of 10 years.
8 Likes
If it’s regular season predicted order of finish, it’s crazy.
If it’s predicted order of Kenpom finish or something like that, it’s maybe a tad pessimistic but not out of line with some of the predictive models.
Eg, last year, we were #8 in KenPom (better in the results stuff) but got a double bye
3 Likes
New rule - all preseason predictions should be based on predicted WAB.
We were 3rd in the ACC last year.
A lot of people forget that our results metrics going into the tourney (and probably even after), were very strong.
5 Likes
I think it’s more the general notion of having us 9th that’s egregious considering we haven’t finished that low in a loooong time rather than a bunch of individual gripes. The only team I have a real problem being ranked above us when put up against what we’re projected to have is GT, the rest at least have some semblance of an argument (though I will say the UL ranking is taking a hell of a leap of faith).
With that being said I would have us 5th or 6th, not 9th lol.
3 Likes
It’s another example of the age-old* preseason modeling question: how much do you anchor your model on player-level information vs team-level info?
A model that only saw the players that were on the roster would have Louisville (for example) as pretty high because they have an old team with a chunk of returning quality high major players and several very good mid-major players making a set up. But a 100% team-level model would see that they sucked last year so they’re gonna suck this year (though it probably would see the 0% returning minutes as a positive).
But then you throw human judgment into it and they probably are inconsistent with how they are anchoring their judgments of a team.
*maybe like 7-8 years old
4 Likes
It seems like Marks’s projection specifically factored in returning 3 point production as a major reason behind his rankings, so at least there’s some method to the madness?
I agree on Louisville, they kinda remind me of Memphis from last year in that they’re gonna be highly talented and look amazing in theory and maybe every now and then on the court. But that is A LOT of new pieces for a coach in his first year at a new job in a new conference that’s way more competitive than his last one to get right. I could see UL being a bubble team/making the tournament purely on talent and three point variation alone, but top three in the conference would probably assume they’re a top 20ish team in the country. Can’t go that far.
2 Likes
Working against us right now is that for the first time since 2013, we don’t return at least one rotation point guard. Perrantes was able to hand the reins to Jerome who handed them to Clark who handed them to Reece. An incumbent PG covers a lot of ills, and is a big reason why Duke and UNC sit comfortably atop my ACC rankings right now (which I’ll probably finalize after I finish up the VT and Wake capsules this week). In Perrantes’ first year, he had the benefit of stepping into a lineup that had returners at the 2-5. Warley and Ames are captaining a ship with a lot of new crew.
We’ve seen Tony lean on multiple transfers hard in the last few season, capped last year with Minor, Groves, Dante, and Rohde all given heavy minutes to mixed results, and we still manage to finish top-half. This year’s transfers are either more proven (Saunders as a part time starter on a Top 25 / Sweet 16 team, Warley as a 3-year rotation guy in the ACC) or have higher recruiting profiles (Ames, Power both Top 75 recruits a year ago) than anyone we had coming in last year, and none are coming from bottom half conferences like Rohde and Minor were. Point being, there’s an angle where this year’s transfer haul has better potential than last year’s.
But, again, there’s no veteran PG to lean on the way last year’s team was clearly Reece’s and all the new faces knew to get in line behind him. This year’s team is going to have to figure out that “player leader” aspect on the fly.
7 Likes