21-22 post-mortem

This is only a minor point in the context of your post, but I’m uncertain about Ali Ali on the defensive end. A guy that tall and long who gets no steals, blocks, or defensive rebounds makes me nervous.

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That’s a fair point. Trey Murphy also had not stellar stats in those categories at rice (did a little better his 2nd year there though). If Ali Ali can buy into our vision of Trey Murphy and understand that Trey Murphy came here specifically to develop his defensive skills and he truly buys into that, it could be something special.

But like you said, not something guaranteed.

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I think getting our lockerroom and roster construction right with the portal this off season is way bigger deal than London Johnson.

London Johnson would be an incredible get and we are still the favorites for him despite the recent update I guess. But we really need to reset our culture.

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Hey wait, you’re turning the post-mortem thread into another transfer thread! :joy:

I’m just kidding. Have at it. :wink:

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I mostly agree with you and @haney too although if I’m trying to read Tony’s mind, he saw Stattmann as a limited player who’d been in the program and bought in. He was competent defensively and had good length to help him. There wasn’t any offensive upside there, but you knew the consistency you’d get out of his offense (my guess at his thoughts, not my thoughts. Stattmann’s offense was inconsistent and mostly bad). The bench guys had much higher offensive upsides, but they were contemporaneously worse than Stattmann (I don’t agree with this point at all). He didn’t want to play them until they showed they were better in practice (gotta earn your spot).

I think it all comes back to the man values every game and tries to win all of them. Playing someone who would give you less of a chance to win the current game isn’t what he wants to do, even if losing a few more early games is the necessary evil to being a better team later in the season.

Just me playing amateur Freud. Probably best to just ignore me.

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I mean, I think that interpretation is as good as any. And it’s a defined coaching style. It’s won us a ton of games and I get it. It’s also hard to argue against “gotta earn your spot”. The question just becomes, are there multiple ways to earn the spot or just the one (packline defensive proficiency)? Seems like there’s only one for young guys, although older transfers like Armaan, Gardner, and Hauser get a pass for some reason and get to play because of our need for their offense, even though they’ve had major defensive growing pains.

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Unless you are Duke or maybe Gonzaga, the trick with the roster is to get old and hopefully stay old in order to enjoy success (see Miami, Wake and to a certain extent, UNC, in conference this year, Villanova out of conference but there were several other teams that fall into that category, I’m just too lazy to do the research). In this day of the free transfer, it’s going to be harder than ever to keep a roster that gets old together and, even harder, when you bring in large recruiting classes like Tony has done over the years as the cupboard gets depleted. The year-sitting out helped enforce the stay together, get old together paradigm, but that’s out the window.

Going forward, CTB will have to be prepared for more transfers out by choosing to selectively recruit over players and by devoting resources to the portal earlier.

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The same guy who wrote the long Kody v. Taine and Carson piece, has an even longer piece on Kihei.

I will read this over the next few days and maybe share some thoughts (skipping through to the conclusion, I’m probably a bit more on board with this one). The conclusion seems to be that being tall is a good thing in hoops. Just crazy enough to be true…

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Well the difference between the two seems to be Ritchie McKay. He wasn’t here for the entire 2016 cycle but he was for Kyle and Ty committing.

I read most of it and the takeaway for me was that while Kihei does provide value, he’s not necessarily a net positive player. The bad, mostly stemming from his size and the way he’s utilized, make him a net neutral at best.

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Kyle and Ty were tony recruits though I think.

That’s what has been reported but that wasn’t the point I was trying to make. Just was preemptively getting ahead of the inevitable ‘McKay left in 2015’ reply because he was on staff for part of the 2016 cycle. McKay leaving is about the only concrete change I can find that occurred around the time the 2016 cycle was happening. 2017 would’ve been the first cycle he wasn’t a factor for us and is the cycle where things seem to have gone sideways a bit.

Hopefully Getter, based off the work he’s done with the 2022’s, has finally filled that void.

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For me, Kihei is like a good movie that you’ve just seen too many times. You really liked it and appreciated the action and good story line; but you’re just too damn tired of it and don’t want to watch it again. You’re ready to watch a new movie.

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I will say after the last 24 hours, I will never make fun of Jim Boeheim for only playing his kids/Joe Girard and running off all their young talent. I think this is Karma really for all those syracuse jokes.

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There were positives to this season too though. I do have to remind myself of that.

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cb0s48JDn9g/

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@Wahoo-Architect That is a great description of how i feel about Kehei. Only thing i would add is if that Kehei stays and if we another season like this season then the ending of the movie will change and nobody is going to like it. If he goes out now he will still be fondly remembered with his legacy intact. If next year goes bad Kehei wont have a legacy and others will suffer too.

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Rambling thoughts on the Kihei article:

  • I should have noted this last time, but I really appreciate the author doing this stuff. Just compiling the video clips is a really valuable public service. Like I said, I should’ve noted that last time, but my ego was too focused on disagreeing with some of the conclusions.
  • I didn’t necessarily disagree with the author’s main point in the previous article (that Kody was better on defense than Taine/Carson), but I thought there was at least a bit of straw-manning, because nobody was saying those guys should play more because they were as good or better on defense (not to belabor, but I think the main points of the counterargument were : (1) Kody’s not that good on D even if he is better, and (2) maybe the tradeoff in those minutes would’ve been better the other way… and the author didn’t really deal with the counterarguments in good faith).
  • But, while I think it’s universally acknowledged that Kihei’s height is an issue, there’s a tendency to view his exploits relative to his height, rather than absolutely. So, my point is that the author is shooting at more of a sacred cow than he was in the Taine/Kody/Carson article, so the “death by a thousand video clips” makes a little more sense here.
  • So let me pause here to note what this article does really well: demonstrates the ways in which Kihei’s height was a significant detriment on both offense and defense.
  • One quibble - he keeps calling what he’s doing “analysis” when he’s really just doing extensive video breakdown. Which I love and think is great, and I’m glad he’s doing it! But it’s a particular type of analysis…
  • Lineup decisions in 20-21 (where’s Woldo) v. 21-22 (No M&M&Ms): I didn’t post here until this past summer, so you have to take this on faith, but I generally thought Tony handled the lineups fine last year (with two quibbles that I will get to in a bit). I was a “Trust Tony!” guy last year! I just found the Woldo debate tiresome, because I thought he was given a chance, didn’t really gel well in any particular lineup, and was given significant, albeit lower total, minutes even after it didn’t go well. Plus we had plenty of shooting. The debate was mostly Woldo v. Reece for those minutes, and at least until February or so, Tony made the right call, IMO.
  • But here come my 20-21 lineup quibbles: (1) Reece sucked in February. Just terrible. He was hurting the team. Actively bad. He needed pine time and he needed a lot of it. But Casey was also going through a rough patch. And Woldo’s time indeed went up, and he played well … but then get Covid (or at least went into quarantine…). But then he came out of quarantine AND TONY DECIDED TO START HIM. Let me shout that one again, because it’s really bizarre. He came out of Covid quarantine AND TONY DECIDED TO START HIM. And take a wild guess how he did when he hadn’t played or practiced for a few weeks. That’s right: say it with me: HE SUCKED! Of course he did. Why did Tony expect anything other than sucky suckiness? Did he watch any college hoops last year? I did and I would’ve been happy to tell Tony that was pretty dumb. Seriously, folks. If anyone needs evidence of Tony’s humanity and ability to err just as stupidly and idiotically as the rest of us: he started a guy out of Covid quarantine and then, when that guy inevitably played poorly, Woldo sort of receded in usage and Tony went back to plan A: Reece and Kihei together. (2) The second lineup quibble is unrelated to the point at hand: McKoy should’ve been playing the backup 4 / “energy guy off the bench” role from game 1, but he didn’t play that role until Feb 24 v. NC State. (I think he may have stuck around if he consistently got 10-20 minutes a game in that role).
  • But, despite my long passionate tangent, I generally do think Reece was the right call for the vast majority of the season, and I should note that Covid made things complicated, and but for Tomas’s Covid situation, I think he would have been the stretch run starter. But where I part ways the author that I don’t think it’s so clear that Reece and Kihei together so much was clearly the right call in 21-22 (actually tbh, I’m not really sure what his takeaway was on this point, and I think the author, once again, really didn’t engage in the tradeoffs discussion that much because (1) it’s complicated, and (2) maybe he worried about undercutting his previous article about how bad Taine and Carson were at even tying their shoes in the morning).
  • Re: next year: Ugh, I try to stay away from this, but yes, I agree that if he does come back, the right role for him is somewhere between “backup to Reece for spot minutes” and “exactly the same as it has been the past two years”.
  • Where I do think I have a minority position is that I absolutely think it’s possible that Kihei comes back and plays a significantly reduced / different role. And I will join the Kihei defenders in stating that, if he does play 30+ minutes again, that might be more of a statement on the talent behind him than a statement on Tony/Kihei. (But yes, even if that does happen, his presence will be hindering their development, even if his 30+ status would be a statement that the raw talent was not what we were hoping for).
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I like his conclusion

" Do I think we should be rooting for him to return in 2022-2023? Hypothetically, the answer is yes. If he and CTB were willing to play him as a true backup to Reece, maybe 10 minutes a game max in most games and then scale those minutes situationally against certain opponents (like against Miami, or if we face the Jared Harpers of the world, need to break the press, salt away some free throws, etc.), then, absolutely! He’s an ideal Swiss Army Knife piece that can solve so many questions and his presence in the locker room with the incoming Freshmen would be so valuable (this is all assuming that London Johnson isn’t going to be re-classifying to this coming year). We also don’t have that level of ball handling slated to join the roster in case Reece fouls out or needs a rest, etc.

However, given our history over the last two years of being unwilling to moderate his minutes, regardless of the need or situation, then I would be very reluctant. Can I really imagine a world where Kihei Clark starts four full seasons, returns for a 5th and doesn’t play 30+ minutes per game? I cannot. Beekman is a true star at the position with almost unrivaled physical ability who will continue to grow. We need him on the court as much as possible. Franklin thrives at the 2 and is much better suited for it, plus we have Isaac McNeely coming into the fold and I have no doubt we will want plenty of his shooting at times next year. We need those guys playing their natural positions. In order to continue to grow the roster and the program, we would need one of the heroes and most recognizable players in recent history to become a role player, and our coach to be willing to play him as such.

Like I said, it’s complicated."

We lose much more than we gain with Kihei coming back. Everyone plays out of position, and those minutes can go to youth in a season where expectations are low anyways (another developing year, hopefully with actual development for the young guys). We just need to say “Kihei you have played the most minutes out of anyone in UVA history. Thank you for the pass. I wish you well in grad school wherever.” Its time for change

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I haven’t read the article yet. Im going to right now. All i can say is that unless Kehei accepts a greatly reduced role then it is going to hurt the whole team. Kehei the most of all

I hope for everyone’s sake and mental health that Kihei decides to move on. Go pro or go to a school closer to home so his family can go to all the games.

Otherwise I see no realistic world where Tony Bennett sits a returning 4 year starter to play backup minutes nor where a 4 year starter would want to return to a team where he’ll be playing significantly fewer minutes than the past 3 seasons.

Caveat: I have not read that article yet.

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