⛹️‍♂️ Elijah Saunders - Official Thread

Point is don’t assume that Saunders is going to man up against a much bigger Schieffelin inside. Again, I like Elijah’s game outside and his ability to finish but he is not going to be doing damage with a post game.

He’s not a post up guy. He’s a guy who cuts/slashes and slides off screens.

And just as of recent in his NCAA tournament games he had to guard Wolf and Clingan.

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Also…I can live without the 4-man having a post game. Zach Edey literally scored 37 points in the championship game and Purdue was still at 0.98 points-per-possession because they couldn’t get a clean look from 3 the whole game.

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Yep, definitely not a must-have in today’s game given how offense is run.

He’s really good at this, just low volume in terms of attempts.

Hopefully he can up his 3pt% a little bit to he a threat out there. That would make him a great role player on offense.

Plus add some defensive intensity. Honestly kind what we were hoping Bond would be, just a more reasonable height.

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Some UVA fans have a weird obsession with making all of our own roster 2 to 4 inches shorter than listed.

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Whose offense? :neutral_face:

I am stoked for @Cuts_from_The_Corner breakdown on this one!

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Except for Jay Huff, who I believe ended up being 7’4 by the time he left our program.

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I’d say it is the other way. Reality is we generally are “surprised” on the downside … Clark (“he is 5-10!”), Wilkins, Minor, McKoy, et. al. No matter. It is more about can the kids play or not. I like Saunders on this team. He moves well without the ball, ready to shoot, and he is thick enough to take contact and finish inside.

Just to belabor this point, Jaedon Ledee – for those who don’t know, not trying to be pedantic – was second-team All American, 20.5 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 55.7% FG. This is who Saunders played with in the frontcourt, which drove down his usage and likely ppg. I think he will be a much more significant scorer for us, depending on how much Tony plays him.

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Guessing he has some development to be a significant contributor, but the potential is certainly there.

A SDSU buddy of mine had this to say about him after he committed to UVA:

“When he’s on, very special player. He’s only on 30% of the time. He improved between this last year and the year before, so he’s probably going to be pretty good”.

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30% of the time, he works every time.

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Significant underestimation, imo. He hardly played in his freshman year, so there was definitely going to be some kind of jump. I think that his jump was good based on his usage rate last season, and I mentioned why that was the case. I watched SDSU all last season and when he was able to get any kind of rhythm, he was very good. Still think the increased usage rate is going to facilitate a significant jump for him. Based on the vaunted eye test he was good far more often than 30%. But it’s subjective and my opinion isn’t any more valid than his.

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LMAO Saunders was talking shit but deleted the tweet. But I kinda love it.

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Oh no, that means he’s probably seen Tu tweeting at him that he looks like Badocchi

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Tu finding out that Saunders is actually a DAWG
Devin Booker Shaq GIF

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Is Schieffelin that big? I don’t remember him being particularly large, just high energy and with a knack for putting himself in the right place.

We’ve made it guys, we are the NIL boogeymen to other fanbases now!!!

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