Not losing too much sleep over that yeah. If Igor was truly more ready to play than Kody Tony would have played him/he would have gotten the same burn Hunter got off his redshirt year (same age). But that’s a conversation for another thread LOL
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And for the record, Igor let himself go when he decided to the quit the team and transfer out, not being patient.
Please know, Igor had the height of a power forward, and the frame of a bouncy PF, but had absolutely NO POST game. He played the wing and had absolutely NO HANDLE to get it done in the ACC as a SF.
Igor could really shoot for his size when left wide open. Nothing further. Could not defend the wing or post, and was a below average rebounder for his 6’10 frame.
Had he choose to stick around then maybe 3/4 years from he would’ve been a much better player getting Coaching from CTB and JWilly.
He wasn’t a very highly sought after prospect even for his height/size/shooting touch for a reason.
If he puts in the work, he can eventually become a productive mid major player.
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You could literally write the same thing about Kody Stattmann except he couldn’t shoot and had been in the program for four years
Except for the fact that Stattmann had a better grasp of the defense, and he was a willing rebounder, and that sort of gives you an idea of the qualities Coach Bennett values more.
Edit to add: And, in conference play, Stattman still had the second best 3 point average (.378) on the team, Milicic was under 20% in ACC competition.
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We watched Stattmann get cooked over and over on defense. He averaged less than two rebounds a game
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I have no idea what the coaches saw in Kody. I guess his avg perimeter shooting kept him on the floor since the team had no others.
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Tony had to be as unhappy as us with his bench choices.
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I never wanna hear his name uttered again in my life. Part of me hopes we fill the 13th scholarship so that there’s no way he can come back (I know he’s not coming back)
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And yet, it was nowhere near the cook-age of the young guys. Not even close, not by a mile. He also regularly made plus plays on defense that rarely got acknowledged.
I’m not a Kody stan and I’m fine with arguments over mixing up line ups, but the myth that his defense was anywhere close to as bad as our young fleet is absolutely bonkers.
It’s OK to be frustrated that we didn’t have options last year, but that’s all it was.
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We did have other options, he just didn’t play them. At all. Igor got fewer minutes than Marco Anthony and Caffaro did their first year. I don’t understand the mental gymnastics people will do to convince themselves that the Kody minutes weren’t a mistake last year. Does everyone forget the missed dunks, getting stripped in the lane, and consistently get blown by by every single athlete that is better than him? Coach Bennett can make mistakes. That was clearly one of them
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Ha I have no vested interest here and not trying to do mental gymnastics. I just watched Igor and Taine play defense in the ACC and I saw worse outcomes, more regularly (this part is key) than when Kody played defense. Which is saying something because I agree with most of what you say about Kody.
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This thread is getting a little sabre-ish. We can all rag on Kody because we’ve seen him make mistakes because Coach played him. We assume that Igor or Taine would be better because they haven’t nearly as much floor time to make mistakes.
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For anyone who wants to talk about prospective or past lineup choices, I invite you all to join me in the lineup conjecture thread or the 21-22 post-mortem thread (or what I call, for you Station Eleven fans: The Museum of Civilization).
As someone who’s been pretty vocal that Tony should’ve tried to get more shooting in the lineup, I don’t assume that at all. The only thing I assumed is that Tony would’ve tried, but he didn’t. And if anyone wants to check my work, join me in the Museum of Civilization!
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I think a part of it was that TB not only didn’t fill out the roster last year in an effort to get his young guys playing time- he actually never really let them play at all either, so we were stuck with a 7 man rotation, and Stattman was part of that rotation. So the team (and fan expectations) were getting it from BOTH ends.
It appears that TB has learned that lesson and is filling out his roster, and engaging more in the transfer game as well. The ACC is wide open in terms of domination due to the retirement of Roy and Roach K. TB is primed to step into those shoes, and that starts with making some better decisions like he’s doing now.
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TB’s post game after we lost … yeah, you could see he was NOT going to repeat that situation again.
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Ooh, not sure about that last bit. UNC might be stronger than ever after that run and Duke is having historical talent stockpiling that eclipses Gonzaga and Kentucky. I think they could be even tougher moving forward but it is early.
I hate duke like any decent human being should, but I don’t obsess over them (reading their boards and writers, follow who they’re recruiting and signing) like a lot of UVA fans do. So I don’t know, what are they doing differently their first post K year that they haven’t done in years past? I mean, they’ve pretty much had their pick of who ever they wanted for a decade now. Unless they’re bringing in actual NBA all stars, what could they possibly be doing that’s historic?
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Well it’s a 10 day dead period for recruiting. Time for a vacation LOL
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I hope we are nearing the point of exhausting all debate about lineups and Stattman. Nothing new possibly left unsaid.
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