Time to log off for me lol. Really tough loss and feel for the players. Hope the season continues!
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Passed on Aiden Mahaney and took Rohde.
Passed on Silas Demary Jr and took Dante.
Passed on kids like Cam Christie and DaRon Holmes and take Jordan Minor and Jacob Groves.
Just a lot of weird decision making. Really do hope Sanchez, even if he is an echo chamber scheme wise, really re-emerges in terms of our evaluations. Cofie does look like a steal (still want 2 forwards with how green Buchanan is)
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Nah, Iām not renewing my season tix for next year. Wat too much money and time to go watch basketball that makes my eyes bleed.
Yea Iām not going to freak out about next year until after portal season. I expect growth from McKneely. I expect Gertrude to be an impact player next year. I expect Blake to be a competent defender in the post. I expect Bliss to be ready to give solid minutes the way our previous PGs did as freshman. Letās see how the rest of the roster rounds out. Incredibly wide range on what the team could look like by the end of April
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The talent evaluations/talent development for several years now have been somewhat baffling. I could go back and update my long list of post 2016 recruits listing how many have been total busts and how few home runs weāve hit, but Iām too tired and I have to get up in like 3 hours to feed the baby. But our hit rate has been abysmal.
And even when we do hit (Dunn, Reece, McKneely) one canāt apparently play offense beyond open dunks and one has a three point form that makes me want to just watch London Perrentes highlights on repeat to make me forget whatās on my TV.
Itās like winning a championship destroyed our ability to construct a roster rather than helped us take the next step. Itās mildly infuriating.
Iām going to bed that was horrific. These problems are systemic and we donāt have the feedback loops to solve them. Good night everyone
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Itās also going to be hilarious when this team makes the sweet sixteen
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Iāll admit I was totally happy with all of those except Dante. Like you, I thought at the time that it was an absolutely foolish decision.
Actually think Groves exceeded my expectations this season.
Itās a shame Tony didnāt play Minor more, heās clearly better than Buchanan but hopefully the experience helps Blake a lot next season. I know Minor will go down as a bust but if we just played him from the start then maybe he would have met expectations.
Rohde was just largely bad all season but who knows how he would have been if Taine got to play the minutes he clearly deserves. What the hell was Tony thinking with his management of these two all season?
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Imagine us winning a championship just playing garbage basketball. Like beating UConn 47-43 in the final while bricking 15 free throws. The NCAA might actually ban us at that point. I might take the championship and then just never watch us play basketball again. Itād honestly be glorious.
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Fuck it, if Brad Stevens and Butler did it. Why not us?
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The million dollar (ten million in the NIL era?) question is what changed? Or is it just a run of unsustainable good luck, given our recruiting range, followed by a run of bad luck? Really the only canāt miss prospects we ever signed were Justin Anderson and Kyle Guy. Everyone else we took a bit of risk
Maybe the next era we hit our expected rate exactly and the results are somewhere between the pre-Covid and Covid-now eras?
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Another season in books. Personally, Iām not holding my breath on Sunday and wonāt be watching the selection show. I feel for the seniors and especially Reece, who likely wonāt win an NCAA tournament game in his career, but Iām definitely ready for a new chapter in the UVA basketball history books, and I hope the team next year can effectively turn the page on what can best be described as a middling four years.
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The hit rate has been bad but weāve gotten a lot of guys over that span that everyone was excited about it. Definitely some big reaches but itās not like we have whiffed on all our top tier targets. For whatever reason most of them just canāt perform well in our offensive and/or defensive system. I donāt know how they fix it
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HGN shared a pretty coherent thread on VIP recently
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Unfortunately I watched that game with my mom. The unbelievable choke by the players and coach pissed me off so badly that when the buzzer beater went in I unleashed a barrage of F bombs like I havenāt done in quite awhile. I couldnāt contain it.
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I said this last year. And the year before last year. The new chapters have just kind of been more of the same in terms of the post championship era.
I honestly kind of wish this season had been a total reset. No aged transfers (Groves, Minor, Harris) or reaches (Rohde). Just play the young guys and see what weāve got. Donāt redshirt Bliss, play Gertrude a bunch, see what Bond actually is. Yes we would have sucked, but that would be a new chapter and then we could build something. And a lot of us probably would have been fine with sucking because hey, weāre young and seeing what weāve got!
Instead, we keep refusing to let ourselves be bad for a season and take lumps. Tony wants to have his cake and eat it too, so we keep bringing in mediocre transfers to keep us from sucking but they will never make us great. Itās just tiring.
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I was hoping next year would be the reset year, but with Dante/Rohde still running point, I donāt see how next year is any better barring an absolutely amazing haul in the portal
Tony Bennett hates moms. There is no doubt now.
I mean, we just have to be willing to not play Harris. We just need to basically recruit over him. Heās a great kid, but itās not going to work.
For Rohde, I donāt know. He could still develop and be a solid back-up guard off the bench. But he shouldnāt be the plan to start and he shouldnāt prevent us from seeking out talent elsewhere. Dude was a gamble from St Thomas - our plans shouldnāt revolve around him.
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I wonder how many teams have given up two regulation buzzer beaters 24 hours apart?
Canāt be many.