I prefer the years where the offense comes out ahead of the defense to start the season, I think that was mostly the case in 2019 (though to be fair we were incredible on both ends that year) and as you said in 2016. IMO that 2016 squad was the 2nd best team of the TB era by March, apologies in advance for bringing it up but had it not been for the collapse against Cuse I really think we had a good shot at winning it all.
There’s been seasons where the offense never fully came around under Bennett, but the defense always seems to be around the level he wants it to by the time we hit the home stretch of our games. I expect this year to be no different.
Definitely will get better as we go. Our ceiling will still be limited by a long wing lockdown defender, but no doubt we should improve. Hopefully it won’t come at the cost of offense (which it weirdly seemed to last year).
I’m cautiously hoping that Dunn can see enough growth during the season to potentially provide that in March. It’s probably too much to expect from him at this stage of his development but the talent is clearly there. In hindsight I do think we could’ve done with a grad transfer wing on this roster to safely fill that need, but can’t complain too much with the results we’ve seen so far.
If we had a grad transfer wing this board would be melting down over how the grad transfer is stealing Dunn’s minutes and now Dunn’s gonna transfer lol
Continuing my point on Dunn from the Michigan game thread, I think CTB is handling Dunn’s development perfectly. Dunn’s played in every game except the season opener against NCC, maybe not a lot of minutes if its a tight game against a tough opponent (3 minutes vs Illinois, 5 minutes vs Michigan, etc), but he always comes in and he gets more time in the blow-outs.
Its what you do with a young player who isn’t there yet, but you see the potential and don’t want him to get hot feet. Dunn sees that the front-court is crowded but CTB is still making an effort to get him in anyway. That builds trust, and Dunn can see the opportunity waiting next year. Its great, and, to call a spade a spade, kind of the opposite of what CTB did with the 3 Ms last year. Edit - Which, to be clear, I suspect was as much or more about them than CTB.
It’s not called melting down, it’s called quibbling, and damn straight I would’ve done it!
Seriously though, it’s a tradeoff, for sure. We made that risk on BVP (w/ Tradut), and the tradeoff has been great, so far. Best case scenario is that we keep bringing Dunn along to play that role a bit more (for like ~15 minutes rather than ~5), but we shall see.
But let’s call a spade a spade here: it’s been great to have the three 5th years so far, but it’s tough for guys like Dunn and i-Mac to displace those guys, and it’s pretty much an unprecedented challenge, unless I’m forgetting a major pandemic in the era of big time college hoops.
I’m not fretting about this, I think there’s a lot of season for McKneely and Dunn to come into their own and by ACCT, they’ll really be able to contribute.
And look at the ACC thus far, we’re gonna have some big wins where they can get extended minutes.
Was just going to bring this up. Dunn is still very raw so I expect him to only get better but still be a situational contributor.
McKneely on the other hand was expected to be a big contributor and so far he’s been all but invisible against good competition. What does everyone make of his play so far and do we think he will try to be more aggressive as the year goes on?
He’s as advertised as a shooter and I believe that he can still be a really valuable piece for us this year but I’m a little taken aback by his passiveness
I like Dunn and IMac playing and their minutes give them film to watch and improve on. I hope that if they each have 200-250 minutes by March they could be very valuable in stretches in the tournament. I also think the FSU game and JMU game could be great times for them to get a few more mins.
I also think McKneely needs to get in the gym with one of the bigs, one of the PGs, and Dunn. McKneely needs to practice catching and shooting while running off screens and Dunn needs to practice chasing him. That is basically the only thing either of them are being asked to do this year.
Also how lucky we are that neither of them have been massive for us yet but we still are undefeated? It feels like McKneely hitting a few threes in a game will be a bonus and could be one of those surprises that lets us win a game that we thought me might not.
I’m withholding judgment. We have faced three really good OOC opponents, two of which called for us to focus on the interior. ACC play starting saturday should provide opportunity for us to light some teams up from 3
Agreed - we all know he can shoot lights out but I’d like to see him fight for looks more. He’s not firing off screens and his looks against good competition have been when he’s left open in the corner.
The three he had against UMES where he got himself open off the dribble and hit a stepback showed the potential.
I think if he were on last year’s squad he’d have much more of a green light to hunt his shot, but given that our roster this year is pretty stacked with scoring options he doesn’t really need to come in and put up a bunch of 3’s in a hurry. Do I wish he’d be less tentative on the perimeter? Absolutely, and we’re gonna need him to at least provide a threat offensively against quality opponents in the postseason. But as for right now I think he just needs to keep grinding on defense and have the game slow down for him a bit.
It is a new guy thing. Isaac wants to fit in and do the right things while he is on the court. Dont forget, he is playing alongside some really really good guards that have tons of experience. A little bit tentative? Maybe. But he wants to be additive at this point as opposed to come in and take over. It is not an easy role your first year The main positive for me is he never seems lost or not in the right place. The rest will come and he is getting those opportunities
For the record I don’t have any doubts that McKneely will be a great player for us. I’m more speaking in the context of will he be a contributor on THIS team. Right now he’s getting minutes in big games but has yet to really make an impact. Hopefully he gets some opportunities in these games coming up sans Houston to get his confidence going, and I’ll bet he has one 15+ point game outta nowhere in ACC play a la my goat against Notre Dame and Villanova that comes right when we need it.
Does anyone know how he looked in Italy? I know he hit some open shots in the scrimmage but he wasn’t hunting looks there either (Traudt was by comparison).
Seems he took the Kody/Malachi role too much to heart… if he was watching last year which we know he saw all the games, then he saw that those 2 got playing time by not messing up … not by tring to make plays.
I highly doubt what Kody and Malachi did last year has any baring on McKneely’s play this year. I just think he’s trying to play within the offense and is more comfortable, for now, deferring in big games whereas he’s playing looser against lesser competition.
