I think we’re debating two different things - because I’d agree that Ames has a pretty solid framework off of which to work.
My concern is how we used him/who we use him with because of recent… examples.
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That’s not a bad floor and if he he stays in tve gym, there’s no reason he can’t get to 38% or maybe higher going forward.
To follow-up on this, the answer is pretty much all UVA guards during the Bennett era who we think of as major contributors surpassed Dai Dai in their first years. Below are the stats for all UVA guards under Tony in their first years. It is sorted by Torvik’s overall offensive efficiency measure (PRPG!). Hopefully I didn’t screw this up.
| PLAYER | PRPG! | MIN% | BPM | ORTG | EFG | TS | OR | DR | AST | TO | STL | 2P | 3P |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Joe Harris | 2.4 | 72.8 | 4.2 | 105.3 | 54.5 | 57 | 4.6 | 14 | 10.3 | 17.3 | 1.9 | 42.0% | 41.7% |
| London Perrantes | 2.3 | 74.4 | 5.2 | 117.5 | 50.3 | 55.5 | 0.9 | 7.9 | 24.3 | 19.2 | 2 | 31.9% | 43.7% |
| Kyle Guy | 2.2 | 45.9 | 6.9 | 114.8 | 56.3 | 57.8 | 1 | 10.4 | 15.2 | 10.6 | 1.4 | 38.2% | 49.5% |
| Justin Anderson | 2.1 | 59.9 | 6.8 | 106.3 | 46.7 | 52.3 | 5.1 | 12.2 | 20.2 | 16.1 | 2.3 | 47.3% | 30.3% |
| Kt Harrell | 1.5 | 55.1 | 0.1 | 99.4 | 47.9 | 50.4 | 3.5 | 8.1 | 9.4 | 11.8 | 0.8 | 42.4% | 42.1% |
| Kihei Clark | 1.3 | 66.3 | 3.5 | 105.9 | 44.3 | 48.9 | 2.1 | 8.4 | 16.4 | 19.5 | 1.8 | 36.1% | 34.1% |
| Ty Jerome | 1.2 | 34.3 | 5.5 | 109.6 | 60.5 | 62 | 0.3 | 14.5 | 21.2 | 22.9 | 2.1 | 62.2% | 39.7% |
| Isaac McKneely | 1.1 | 53.5 | 1.6 | 106.1 | 56.3 | 57.4 | 1.2 | 11.7 | 6.6 | 12.2 | 1.1 | 50.0% | 39.2% |
| Reece Beekman | 0.8 | 73 | 2.2 | 99.6 | 42.3 | 47 | 1 | 11.1 | 18 | 19.1 | 2.7 | 45.2% | 24.3% |
| Malcolm Brogdon | 0.8 | 48.7 | 1.1 | 93.1 | 46.5 | 51.4 | 3.1 | 12.6 | 13.2 | 22.2 | 1.5 | 45.1% | 32.4% |
| Marial Shayok | 0.8 | 36.2 | 6.3 | 102.6 | 48.7 | 50.5 | 2.1 | 12.7 | 14.3 | 16.9 | 2.6 | 42.4% | 38.0% |
| Taylor Barnette | 0.6 | 17.7 | 1.5 | 111.3 | 65.7 | 64.5 | 0.5 | 7.9 | 15.8 | 22.1 | 0.3 | 71.4% | 43.2% |
| Carson McCorkle | 0.5 | 2.2 | 8.3 | 139.1 | 50 | 50 | 6.4 | 16.9 | 34 | 0 | 3 | 100.0% | 25.0% |
| Billy Baron | 0.3 | 15.1 | -0.7 | 94 | 43.8 | 47.1 | 0 | 8.1 | 15.1 | 15.2 | 2.1 | 30.0% | 31.6% |
| Dai Dai Ames | 0.2 | 45.6 | -2.7 | 89.4 | 42.8 | 46.4 | 2.1 | 4.1 | 18.6 | 25.3 | 1.6 | 37.3% | 32.9% |
| Marco Anthony | 0 | 7.5 | 0.2 | 87.7 | 44.6 | 44.2 | 1.3 | 14.5 | 16.7 | 19.5 | 1.3 | 33.3% | 38.5% |
| B.J. Stith | 0 | 4.6 | -0.1 | 89 | 42.3 | 45.1 | 0 | 15.1 | 12.5 | 20.9 | 2.2 | 57.1% | 16.7% |
| Devon Hall | -0.1 | 17.8 | 0.8 | 89.9 | 46.3 | 46.4 | 1.1 | 7.3 | 14.2 | 24.2 | 2.5 | 44.0% | 33.3% |
| Elijah Gertrude | -0.1 | 11.2 | -0.7 | 76.4 | 37.1 | 40.6 | 1.5 | 13.5 | 8.6 | 15.8 | 4.7 | 46.5% | 6.7% |
| Jontel Evans | -0.2 | 41.1 | -0.2 | 85.6 | 38.1 | 39.9 | 1.4 | 9.4 | 22.2 | 24.4 | 4.2 | 40.3% | 16.7% |
| Paul Jesperson | -0.8 | 17.1 | -4.1 | 69 | 36 | 36 | 1.3 | 8.4 | 4.5 | 21.1 | 0.9 | 41.7% | 22.6% |
| Casey Morsell | -1.1 | 53.9 | -2.5 | 71 | 32.2 | 34.5 | 1.6 | 7.8 | 7.5 | 15.9 | 1.8 | 38.3% | 17.6% |
Also looking at percentage of minutes played, Dai Dai actually played a lower or comparable percentage than Perrantes, Beekman, Harris, Clark, Anderson, Harrell, Morsell, McKneely, Brogdon, and Guy. Was basically only notably above Jerome. UVA plays good first guards a lot.
And his stats are worse than pretty much all of our great contributors outside of Devon Hall (although Hall had a slightly higher BPM and ORating). Obviously Dai Dai was a well rated recruit and may still have a high ceiling (I hope he kills it), but just wanted to address this specific question. UVA’s guards who were any good - besides Hall - were solid to good in their first years and contributed.
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And lastly, here’s what it looks like if you limit it to guys who actually ended up playing a meaningful number of minutes in their UVA careers (e.g. dropping McCorkle, Jesperson, etc.)
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This is cool thanks for sharing.
I do think that some of this is due to KSU not figuring out Ames shouldn’t be playing SG for much of the season, though, because they wanted Perry to be their ball dominant player. I can’t stress enough how much worse their offense was when that was how they played it vs when they just had Ames as the lead PG. if they had kept that as their primary strategy throughout then he’d probably have been a little better.
KState offense went like this:
Ames at PG > Ames on the bench > Ames at SG
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Definitely. And I think it should also be said that Tony is obviously a pretty darn great coach, so he might be able to get more out of talented first years than others. If Kyle Guy or Joe Harris were on last year’s Kansas St team, who knows how they would have looked. I’d still venture to say pretty good because ultimately they were very talented, but if they were misused their stats could have looked worse than what they put up here (or maybe there’s some weird world where they’d look better playing in a less structured environment first year, but meh, who knows).
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Dai Dai interview.
Dude sounds like he’s just going to the beat of his drummer. Happy to be here, not super enmeshed with the team, and wants to win.
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Never been so owned by AI.
Guess I better get used to it.
Let’s change it to “integrated”
Excited to see Dai Dai play, and it looks like he’s the starting PG. However, you kind of want your PG to be ‘enmeshed’ with the team, no? He’s always felt like he would be someone quick to hop into the portal come next season…
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Based on….?
His handler
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One of the main reasons he came because we offered the most NIL and now it looks like he’ll be the starting pg.
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I’d have to put the odds higher, too. For me, based on (1) lack of natural or preexisting tie to the program (geographic, former recruit, eg); (2) last moment nature of his decision; (3) PT threat from Elijah coming back, Bliss developing and now Chance; and (4) some chance he wouldn’t play much b/c of Warley
Now that 4 is off the table, I think it’s likely he plays a lot and therefore probably stays.
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What @haney said
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Did not realize he shot 46% from 3 over the last 16 games. That’s encouraging without looking into it. Then again, would assume he’s going to be streaky with us. But he’s not remotely a Dante level shooter at a minimum
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Dai Dai got rolling during the final 13 games or so. Inserted into the starting lineup and played well.
Give him time and I think Dai Dai ultimately will prove to be a winner.
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Was he playing more on ball during that time or no?
Yes, he was playing on ball a lot more later in the season and was much better in that capacity than off. Silver lining to the Warley news and what we kind of have to hope for now is that the sheer volume of minutes is going to get him comfortable.
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