How are we going to replace the outside shooting of Jay Huff, Sam Hauser, and for that matter, Tomas Woldetensae, for next year?
Murphy, Abdul Rahim, Taine Murray and Carson. Our top 3 guards by PT cannot be Kihei, Morsell and Reece. None are shooters and something has got to give.
Hopefully Beekman will work on his shot this off-season.
1 Like
I think the short is you dont. Both hit at a high rate. But jabri has potential to shoot. Trey has proven he can shoot. Reece may develop a shot Kihei is decent but dont want to depend on him. Taine could be an option.
Honestly i wouldn’t be opposed to moving away from the total reliance on the 3 like they are this season.
6 Likes
In the history of the program we have never had a 3, 4, and 5 be our outside threats. Assuming we still use numbers for those positions. Is an aberratiom bordering on a luxury for this year. Other guys will step up as they get experience and more chances
8 Likes
Agree it’s an anomaly but if Reece and Kihei both start again next year, and we don’t have a 4 that can shoot, then we are going to have trouble scoring.
3 Likes
Reece will get better from 3 if he works on it. I saw Kiehei playing this summer and his 3 point shot was much quicker and stronger with less effort. I thought be would be more of a threat this year but was kinda wrong. Also he knows the other guys he can set up so its not necessarily needed (til if is)
5 Likes
Next year could be our first year in a long time that we won’t have a shot-blocker on defense.
I hope that Murphy doesn’t decide to go pro.
Beekman is where Morsell was last season, as a shooter, so I think he needs to work on his confidence in his shot. With COVID-19 still around, it can make finding an empty gym for practicing shooting a challenge.
1 Like
We’ve all seen year after year over the past 8 years or so how we fear a massive drop off due players having moved on and it generally hasn’t happened. That said, at this point, next years team has massive holes, on paper, with little proven outside shooting and no proven threats or rebounders inside. We simply must have a top tier 4 and or 5 via transfer. I suspect we will but it’s so hard to pencil someone in as an early top contributor when they will be playing in our systems for the first time with no acclimation year. Trey Murphy has done it but it’s harder at the 4. O
3 Likes
Shedrick is a shot blocker. Probably will add another one in the transfer portal too.
4 Likes
I mean, it also literally happened last year. We lost all of our three point shooting, only partially covered for it with a JUCO transfer, and ended up with by far the worst offense of the post-transition Bennett era. Now that team still managed to pull out an impressive number of wins and was playing well late in the season, but the offense was truly difficult to watch at times. Agreeing with your general point, just saying that when everyone says “we worry about this every year and it always works out” that last year it actually didn’t.
3 Likes
I have been disappointed in Kehei’s 3 point shooting. I expected him to be better. Last years in games he got some rest he shot a lot better. I thought with Reese giving him a break this year he would do better. I didn’t expect him and Reese to be playing together so much. I hope both of them work on their shot in the off season in addition to another player or 2 stepping up next year off the bench
Luckily we have Carson, Jabri, and Taine in the pipeline. All three of those guys should be able to help with guard shooting. Combine them with Trey and I’m not too concerned unless Murphy blows up down the stretch and goes pro.
1 Like
We build our team for experience and succession planning. Morsell will be a 3rd year and better. Clark will be 4th year running the team. Kadin will be 3rd year in the program and ready to contribute. Pool of transfers will be larger than last year when we found Murphy so high degree of confidence that another starter or major contributor will be added. But the key will be Jabri Taine and Carson. If CTB evaluated them correctly then the succession plan worked for 22. If all 3care misses or not ready yet we are in trouble.
3 Likes
Think all of this is right, I just always urge caution when either assuming a big jump from guys who aren’t shooting it well now (Reece, Morsell) or assuming guys we’ve never seen do it at the college level will shoot it well (Jabri, McCorkle, Taine). Every fan base every off season falls into the trap of assuming every player will make a huge jump season to season and assuming their freshmen will be beasts. Sometimes that happens, but not all the time. Just need to recognize the uncertainty, but hope that enough of those bets pan out to provide us with enough shooting, even if they all don’t. We certainly have enough pieces with potential that we don’t need them all to have a great year next year to have a good season.
Edit: And just to add as an example, before last season, if you went to UVA forums, everyone was saying the offense would be just fine after losing Guy, Jerome and Hunter. People said Diakite would take a big leap (he did), Huff would dominate (got better, but not near this year’s level), Key would make a leap (played great D, O didn’t change much), and Morsell would be our most game ready freshman in years (was good on D, but historically awful on O). Everyone’s always optimistic, which is great, but when you lose a ton of shooting and everything else is unproven or just being assumed to be measurably different from the year before, you can get blindsided. I think we’ll be fine next year, just noting it has been a challenge in the very recent past.
3 Likes
True but that’s also the outlier year until proven otherwise. Only year since 13/14 we haven’t been a strong shooting team. It also is hopefully a lesson to Tony to be more aggressive on the transfer market.
2 Likes