We do land them lol. I’m not sure where this is coming from
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Wait, you were following UVA in 2012-2013?
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I find this amusing every time
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Never gets old
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Saw that Ty Davis is on an unofficial to Alabama to watch their win over memphis. Really hope they don’t offer him. Their entire staff has at one point stopped by his school for him over the last few months. Really think his vision, even if not consistent at this stage, is transcendent.
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You’re not sure where this is coming from? That’s laughable.
I think you worded your argument wrong. We’ve landed one of these 6’6-6’8 wings “with potential” at least every two years. But they haven’t always been top 100 players, and they haven’t always worked out — e.g., Stith (4-star), Shayok (3-star), Anthony (3-star), McKoy* (3-star), Stattmann (3-star), Abdur-Rahim (4-star).
Problem is that four of those guys are 2017 recruiting class and beyond so there’s a recency bias, particularly after hitting on Harris in 2010 and Anderson in 2012, with a miss on Jesperson in between.
*He saw himself as a wing, the staff didn’t agree with that assessment.
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We land wings and high profile wings. This is such a weird argument
We have landed recently:
Dre, Key, TM3, JAR, Bond, Dunn, and maybe McKoy?
If JAR and McKoy had been Dre and Key 2.0 we would not be having this discussion
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I haven’t followed this discussion too closely, but I think it started as a “why can’t we land those 6’7” plus wings that ARE highly ranked" question.
Of course, as with any blanket statement / question, it starts to fray at the edges when you break it down. (all rankings from RSCI via Sports Reference)
- Dre - 74. Dre was a diamond in the rough, but didn’t exactly come from nowhere
- Key - 56. Very high ranking, but we didn’t get him until 2 years later. Transfer recruiting complicates all this
- TM3 - unranked, but obviously highly sought after as a transfer, after he grew. To repeat, transfer recruiting complicates all this
- JAR - 36, but never lived up to it or close
- Bond - 63. I’m always surprised how high he was on final ranking. Plus being an inch or two short compared to the typical jumbo wing, plus RSing maybe keeping him out of the original equation.
- Dunn - unranked RSCI (borderline top 100 or top 100 in one of rankings, maybe On3)
- McKoy - unranked (maybe 100-150 or so?)
So, it’s true we haven’t recruited a top 50 jumbo wing who has gone on to make an impact here, even though we are putting those type of guys in the NBA (often first round) on the reg.
But the answer to the “why” part is fairly straightforward:
- We have had only five (by my quick count) top 50 guys here at all (Justin Anderson,** Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome, JAR, and Austin Nichols), and interestingly only 3 of those 5 made a big impact
- In general, it’s really hard to recruit in the top 50, and generally top 50 guys at 6’7" or so and taller will be highly sought after.
** a non-jumbo wing, by height
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If you look at the height criteria (6-6 → 6-9) and ignore position, we recruited** four RSCI top 50 guys this past cycle, and unfortunately went 0-4.
- PJ Tower
- Lil Peja
- Milan M.
- Jamie Kaiser
There were various reasons we didn’t get them; no need for me to rehash all of them, but I suspect having Bond/Dunn in those 3/4 spots might have contributed.
** I know what “recruited” means can be hard to get a handle on, but the guys above seemed to be ones we spent at least some time and effort on.
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The key is WITH POTENTIAL. If you think that some of the players mentioned passed the “with potential test” then we won’t agree with this. If you can’t get on the floor offensively or defensively then why did we recruit them?
They didn’t work out so we ARE having this conversation. Neither JAR, McKoy, or Anthony could get on the court unless it was a major blow out. If you can’t play offensive, defense, rebound, shot block, hustle etc. then why did we recruit them?
Meanwhile we had these guys on the team but major holes in all of the teams that they couldn’t fill, so that’s what we are talking about.
None of those guys spent more than 20 months here, either. When you choose to play for Bennett, you have patience, or you don’t. If you don’t, you leave, as those three did — two of them after two years, one after one.
Anthony and McKoy did get some run, however. The former played 35 games over two seasons, averaging about 6.5 minutes per game; and the latter played 33 games over two seasons, at about 10 minutes per game.
And what were the major holes on the 2018 and 2019 squads that Anthony couldn’t fill? UVa went 66-6 in his two seasons.
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I imagine that the staff thought those guys could be effective or develop to be effective over time. Sometimes you miss, but I don’t think it was totally obvious that those guys were going to miss in the first place. I’m not a fan of other teams so I don’t follow other teams’ recruiting closely but I’m guessing most perennial top-25 teams have misses on guys who were seen as high-potential.
Like, I’d think our board would have had a years-long meltdown around VJ King (Louisville) if he were here, coming in as the #24 recruit and then averaging 4 ppg as a junior.
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VJ King what a throwback name LOL (for me at least. Im sure throwback means something different for the people who always mention this Ronald Curry fellow). I always do wonder how he would have developed under Tony.
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Ryan Dunn doesn’t appear to have much patience…
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Very bad take
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Ty Battle is the throwback for me. I am convinced Tony would’ve turned him into an NBA first rounder.
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