Yea telling that they had a practice before the scrimmage lmao
Honestly, I don’t care how it looks
3 Likes
I think my initial reaction yesterday was moreso “it’s a scrimmage Im not worried about the shooting”.
Today Im thinking we do need another consistent 3pt shooter outside McKneely and of course nothing yesterday showed that so we still have to trust reports and hope Rohde/Groves can do that with Dunn and Bond and Reece hitting open 3s whenever.
Taine technically has that shooting touch but nothing yesterday convinced me that he will be in the rotation. If Robinsin and Bliss didn’t redshirt, he’d probably be 13th.
Im not that worried about Rohde. as @crossedsabres8 said Rohde was actually beating people and getting by the initial defender but as @SaberMetrics pointed out and I was raving about, the helpside D of Dunn Bond Buchanan Robinson and even Reece/Gertrude was insane and nothing close to anything Rohde had seen (even against Creighton last year). And off the top of my head two of Rohde’s shots were in and out and the rest were short.
My 1 day later take is that Leon Bond needs to start. Good things happen offensively and defensively with Bond and Dunn together on the floor. But we also need that 2nd playmaker and starting Bond at the 3 instead of Rohde means 1 less initiator unless you have confidence that Dunn’s assist numbers aren’t a fluke.
Reece McKneely Rohde Bond Dunn (buttttttttt wouldn’t mind Buchanan starting. Also wouldn’t mind Groves at the 4 between Bond and Dunn)
7 Likes
While I haven’t read every single entry in this thread, I do have a question. How much can anyone legitimately takeaway from this preseason scrimmage? Essentially, Virginia returns four players who have participated in UVa games. There are two returning redshirts who have participated in the team’s practices. There are seven players who have spent just three weeks practicing Coach Bennett’s schemes. They are just about half way through preseason. I have attended preseason scrimmages when the majority of the players were veterans, and you couldn’t glean from those scrimmages how they would perform in the regular season. With so many new faces, I imagine this was more than true yesterday. If there were encouraging performances, that’s great. Hopefully, they are a glimpse of the future. However, if a player struggled, I wouldn’t let it worry me. This edition of the 'Hoos will take time to gel. We’re still three weeks from the first game, two months away from the first conference game, and nearly three months to the real start of ACC play. Some of the pronouncements I’ve seen are a bit premature, IMO.
5 Likes
Here’s my take from all the hot takes:
-
We’re going to be inconsistent offensively - basically, limited post play and inconsistent shooters means we’re going to be up and down dependent on three point shooting (pretty much last few years offense?)
-
Rohde may be more Jespersen or Nolte at this point. Probably more ceiling though.
-
Harris seems like the player he was on Georgetown. Not buying the upside.
-
The gap between the first year centers and Minor isn’t large. That’s more of a take that Minor is struggling than first years ahead of schedule.
-
Individually this team is elite defensively. We should probably just play some man defense but we’ll get diced up while Minor/Groves try to learn the pack line rotation.
-
Gertrude looks rusty should really be “Gertrude shouldn’t be playing in an archaic offensive system made for unathletic shooters”. Tony would make Ja Morant learn sides, I’m convinced.
-
Bond and Dunn seem to be playing loose. When I watch old highlights of UVA teams, there’s a stark difference in play style from the uptight teams we’ve seen post natty. Core of Reece, Bond, Dunn and Rohde feel like those guys could get in rhythm.
-
Hopefully the Taine train is now fully parked in the station. Respect for staying at the program, but he’s not it.
Prediction: first round tourney exit
I’m deliberately being negative/myself. Take all takes from takes with a grain of salt.
5 Likes
And without his scrimmage stats, still 11-26 (42.3%).
So basically we suck ass?
2 Likes
The thing with Minor though is that he’s not awful. Might even be refreshing compared to the BVP Jayden pairing (although both showed a little more comfortableness creating their own offense). It’s just that watching Buchanan and Robinson with their length and athleticism even with their mistakes; their flashes just completely overshadowed Minor and the fact that I think he hit most of his shots from the floor. At the same time @SaberMetrics made a good point that with how the lineups played and also how everyone looked and the chirpings we have gotten/what @HoozGotNext implied, Groves might legitimately be ahead of Minor in the depth chart.
I think the question was, does Minor make up for the Kadin loss. No. But the opportunity to play Dunn at the 5 in the Mamadi role (as a guard) blows the kadin loss out the water/that’s how we overcome that loss. That and I do think Buchanan/Robinson will be two of the better if not best bigs Tony has had in the long run.
8 Likes
Agree that you can’t extrapolate a ton from 28 minutes of playing against yourself. But it’s still a lot more encouraging to see the ball going through the hoop than not.
I’m looking forward to raining threes against Tarleton State. Give me a Cavalanche!
5 Likes
Voted “Substantially unchanged.” Upgrade for Leon though, and I’m real happy to see he’ll be a player, both for the team’s prospects and for his own sake.
For me, the biggest question that remains is how situational is Tony going to be with lineups. Will Tony largely lock in on his favorite starting lineup and rotation and we stick with that, or will we see a lot of looks, depending?
7 Likes
I’m foreseeing a lot of janky lineups involving Reece and Harris together with groves at the five
1 Like
Happy Cake Day @salty ! Thanks for hanging out with us for whole year!
8 Likes
FWIW, Packline is a man defense. Tight man on-ball. Sag off ball, with help principles. Cut off baseline, funnel play into the middle (the pack), where it’s clogged and where the help is.
And on ball screens, either hedge-and-recover or switch.
If the individual parts are good, we’ll probably see more switching, particularly for the lineups with guys who can guard multiple positions.
I’m not sure we have the personnel for tight man on and off ball or the “no middle” variations. But we certainly can have the length and athleticism to extend the pack a foot or two.
8 Likes
Bond looking good seems like bigger news than any of the kind of concerning things.
IMac will be fine, honestly doubt he cares about this. What does he have to prove?
If Rohde is legit like practice reports have indicated, then I think we’ll settle into being a solid top 25 team. If Buchanan (or Robinson or Minor) is also fairly legit, then I think we’ll be top 15
10 Likes
Lots of pessimism - here is the thing about a scrimmage: they lend themself to more accurately portraying upside versus downside.
Bond’s explosiveness and finesse on both ends is more indicative of his potential than Rohde performing sub par. Even under ideal circumstances every player has ‘off’ games, as it pertains to a scrimmage preceded by a 30 minute autograph session, to 40 minute practice, to 3 point shooting contest, to first time playing in front of a crown in JPJ, expect more guys to be ‘off’ rather than ‘on’ in a scrimmage, and orient your takes more so around the the guys who are ‘on’ than ‘off’.
3 Likes
Video from 247 on YT now here:
13 Likes
I’ve always thought of it as a “man defense with some zone principles.” I’ve long believed we should occasionally use the jump trap at times to generate some turnovers. That was an old Dean Smith stratagem when UNCheat would play zone but jump trap out of it. It was pretty effective.
4 Likes
Remember how last year one of the takeaways was BVP and dude who left were going to stretch 4 teams to death? And the year the offensive standouts were Isaiah Wilkins and Jack Salt? You really can’t take much of anything other than athleticism and fluidity away from these things. It’s one practice that, at least this year, was held after another practice
9 Likes
Not sure if I totally agree with the granular point on the format but we generally have looked way crappier in scrimmages than we do in season 3-4 games in.
2 Likes
I’ve been annoying people for 365 days! How time flies…
10 Likes