What you are missing is that the NBA drafts on potential not on actual contribution right away especially for 19 and 20 year-old guys.
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He blocks 3.29 shots per game which is good for 4th in NCAA, he can rebound, and, in theory, can hit a three. Also, heās only 20, so heās going to get stronger, especially when put in an NBA strength program.
I donāt think heās pro-ready at the moment, but I can see why people want him at the next level.
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I remember a lot of complaining that year, but Iām old and my memory is fading, so Iāll defer to people who say fans were generally happy with that season. Certainly, the Furman game was awful and colors a lot of our retrospective feelings toward that season.
I could have worded my post better. I wasnāt trying to troll for an argument. I am honestly curious to what degree we have recalibrated our expectations from the Bennett years. Are we hoping for 20-plus wins? A winning ACC record? An NCAA bid? What would we consider success this year?
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Yeah I forgot that team at one point was ranked #2 in the AP. We were preseason ranked #18.
Think we all were even more hyped here comparatively after they won in Vegas against two ranked opponents.
Donāt get me wrong, was a great result of a season, but the team regressed over the course of the season (still finished 1st!) - dealt with the Kihei+Reece, the Kadin/BVP chronicles, etc. and we played a lot of ugly basketball. Ultimately culminating in a really ugly first round exit.
It was fun last night but Iām not anointing this group anywhere beyond where I thought they were before (right side of the bubble). Still fun to celebrate the win.
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Itās actually behind the perimeter video boards. They only open the lower level and corporate boxes for UT basketball. For bigger concerts those perimeter displays (theyāre actually fabric screens and the videos are projected onto them) retract and the upper deck can then be used.
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We would be formidable with the group. Pay up!
Was thinking last night about what recent wins compared to this Texas performance. Couldnāt recall beating a P4 team like that on the road and then remembered the Baylor game where everything was falling for a night. Really fun game to watch.
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Youāre not wrong. But the complaining started around January / February when we won ugly and dropped a few. Also, when we benched Kadin. Sort of became clear that it was a talented team but limited after we had really nice start. (And a lot of that sort of seemed on some CTB stubbornness).
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2022 started really strongly. We waxed Baylor in Vegas on some 3pt shooting luck that we wouldnāt replicate again that season. We then beat Illinois to win that preseason tournament less than a week after the horrible tragedy with our football team. I do think that team really benefited from continuity earlier on in that season and then, as was unfortunately typical with TB teams, we started fading as the season wore on.
We were 17-3 entering February before losing to Virginia Tech in Cassell. From there we started to see some cracks. Shedrick got benched. We were lucky to beat Duke in OT and squeaked by a bad ND team at home. Then we got whooped by BC and UNC in back to back games and the offense was hitting a serious wall. We rebounded nicely though and lost to Duke in the ACC Championship game.
Despite some of the offensive struggles, the team gritted out a 25-7 record and a 4 seed. Great regular season and in line with the more optimistic preseason projections.
Then Furman happenedā¦
I think had Ohio not happened, this game is more quickly forgiven, but with the sting of back to back losses to double digit seed and having lost in the 1st round in 3 of the past 4 NCAA tournament appearances, it was met with a lot of vitriol and frustation. Couple that with lightning rod Kihei being the one to make the critical mistake, the highlight going viral, and then Traudt transferring out soon after that game ended likely clouds our view of that season. Oh and then throw in the whole Shedrick saga and subsequent transferring and it was just a weird year
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I thought we were a national championship contender after that weekend lol
So the gradual degradation in quality of that team was a little disappointing, but I would be stoked with that level of performance year in and year out under Odom. I just donāt think its necessarily realistic to expect that.
Honestly still think we could have made some noise if not for that bad pass.. Shedrick/BVP seemed to have been resolved in that game because Shedrick had an awesome performance
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BVP broke his wrist pre-tournament and didnāt play.
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That too lol I forgot that part
I just remember Shedrick balling out and being frustrated
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My impression is that the boardās general consensus going into this season was 4th in the ACC, one win in the tourney, sweet sixteen ceiling. Maybe some unnamed posters were closer to bubble team. Personally, Iāve thought all this was too pessimistic.
Either way, ā25-8 in 2023, finished first in the conference, lost in the ACC Tourney finals, and got a fourth seed in the NCAA Tournamentā would probably be considered a success by just about anyone, optimistic or pessimistic.
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Iām just going to be real. Iāve lowered my expectations relative to the talent we have on hand.
Partly itās because all of these guys are new. Partly itās because I donāt expect Odom to be as good of a coach relative to the talent he has, at least not yet. He hasnāt won a national championship.
Just to be clear: none of this makes me less excited about this team and our potential and what Odom has cooking right now.
The fanbase had high expectations after the natty. And there was a lot of complaining during 2022-2023 season, mostly about BVP and Shedrick stuff. It wasnāt just the Furman game, that just exponentialized the sentiment.
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As others have said, it wasnāt the 4 seed that was the disappointing factor - it was the loss to Furman.
Without relitigating much, though, it was also that the team was really talented and had a lot of optionsā¦ but continually make things harder on itself in how we chose to utilize the team. There were so many self-inflicted errors that year which was a big driver in the general sentiment around that team.
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Just out of curiosity, since I wasnāt in the thread at that point, was there ever any revealing behind-the-scenes insight discussed regarding exactly what happened with the whole Shedrick-BVP situation and how it affected the team? Was it simply a matter of Tony feeling BVP offered more than Shedrick, or was something else going on?
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Yep! Chance actually controlled that part of the game well in which he drove, posted up and drew plenty of fouls.
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āYeah thatās me. Youāre probably wondering how I got hereā
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