Ben Vander Plas Announces for Virginia

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Staff was extremely confident the second he hit the portal.

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Awesome pickup for us!

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Seemed like it the whole way

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Welcome BVP!
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Nice! I want players who want to play here. Including Kihei x 7… what does this say about McNeil?

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Might be an unpopular opinion, but I think this could be a “good in the short term, bad in the long term” move for us.

I’d rather get Traudt more minutes

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I’m interested to hear what type of role was pitched to him. We have at least 5 players competing for the minutes 4/5 spots. Lots of competition. Hope we still can work to develop the younger guys who need minutes.

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I wanna get dubs.

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Same.

If Traudt doesn’t see the absurd amount of PT available after this season with Gardner, BVP, and Papi leaving then he was never going to stay anyway

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Doubt he would’ve committed if he didn’t expect to play a large role. We will find time for him and my guess is we see some creative lineups. Money is on Papi being the odd man out

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Glad we got him. But now we’re gonna have to hear the backstory about him being named after the Bennett family… every. single. game.

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Probably not as high in this as some on this board. He’s a solid addition and I’m glad he’s on the team but I don’t think this is some missing piece that changes the fortune of nxt yrs team.

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That’s fair but I think a lot of the advantage of playing Traudt this year is trying to develop him for when we will actually compete in his sophomore and junior years.

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The practice time against these experienced players will be invaluable!

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Agreed

I’m more excited by BvP than McNeil. Complements Gardner, gives Traudt competition, and allows us depth upfront (small ball with Gardener, BvP, Traudt, Isaac M and Reece!!!). Excited by this - contrary to Paper, positive short term and long ( gives Traudt the chance to see what he needs to grow in and I think Traudt is probably a better perimeter defender than BvP).

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No reason Traudt can’t end up beating papi for minutes

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