I’m talking about as of December 28, 2020. I’m looking for a bright spot in the Gonzaga game. But like most fans, I couldn’t tell you if he’s playing defense.
He has a young face, which tells me that he is not physically mature yet, and probably still growing.
But Tony Bennett doesn’t build his offense around any one player, right? Maybe he should consider doing it.
Shedrick actually impressed me the most in the limited minutes he had in the game. Seemed to have a real nose for the ball on rebounds and was working hard on the defensive end. I felt like McKoy was pushing and working hard. I am pretty disappointed in Sam’s shooting thus far.
Who do you think our starting lineup should be? It’s probably hard now to find 2 UVa fans who would agree on one. 
You may think that my suggestions are crazy, and they are, but, Tony said that he scheduled the game because he needed to find out how good Virginia (really) is. But the earlier loss to San Fransisco may have taught us even more.
I agree with Kadin, Murphy, Woldo, Caffaro, and Kihei. Toughness plus offense.
I want to see a Reece Casey Murphy McKoy Kadin line up. Murphy is a shooter. McKoy can shoot the three and can become a shooter if we give him the green light and confidence to become one in game. Kadin and Murphy for the boards. Reece gets to develop into our future leader. Casey can provide a spark here and there and also get his onfloor development as he enters midway of his 2nd season here (not even half a season yet though).
Huff and Hauser are great offensive talents but are prone too bad games and just to slow on the defense end and slow to rotate and react at times. Kihei can provide us that toughness off the bench when we struggle and take over when needed out of necessity (but it shouldnt be the gameplan from the get go). Woldo adds 2nd play maker ability and 3 point shooting off the bench.
Chill. We aren’t benching 3 of our 4 best players lol
Just for a game to wake them up. Are they our actual best players, or just the players who we are giving the most shots to? I still think Hauser can elevate himself defensively and become more consistently on the offensive end. Huff is just too slow, and his skillset means little when he takes 4 shots a game. He has an inability to treat other teams like he does Duke. He’s our best helpside defender but struggles one on one aswell. Kadin gives us better rebounding, hustle, and foot speed. More playing time will get him more comfortable. On court development is HUGE.
Im very much on Nick Saban’s mentality with Bama in that I look at the roster and think “Who has the most all-star potential” on this team. It’s Murphy, by a WIDE margin. He’s not there yet but he should be definitely getting more minutes. He has shown versatility to guard other guards and those guards are shorter and have a hard time closing out on murphy when he shoots. Having Kadin and McKoy helps with the rebounding and grit down low that Huff and Hauser have shown they cannot handle, along with showing they are inable to rotate fast enough
Benching Tobey in 2016 helped that team realize it’s potential.
That team had Anthony Gill on the interior
And this team has Kadin as potentially that bull downlow. McKoy has shown some fight in him too down low. We just dont run those plays (of course we shouldnt primarily when we have the alleged shooters we have).
I am still on the very controversial take that I don’t think Hauser is a great fit. He’s a great weapon but we sacrifice too much on defense for his offense to be a net positive against the elite teams. His defense can improve with more oncourt chemistry developed over more games. I still think we are going to be Good in march. But some of the issues we have are things that just can’t be fixed this year with Hauser getting heavy minutes (which he should for his offense).
Shouldn’t we be complaining about the staff not running those plays for Jay Huff rather than benching him and comping two guys who are essentially first years to the best post scorer this program has had in 8 years? I want to see us push the ball to huff down low, either out of mover blocker, in the five-out mid/high post, or just as a design post up. Gotta give him the chance to go to work down there.
I don’t disagree about Hauser, but don’t think the answer is benching him. He was never gonna be the godsend some made him out to be. Personally think you gotta be happy with what u get from him and focus on incorporating reece and jay into the offense more
Hauser was All Big East 2nd team. He has only played 6 games here. He doesn’t need some sort of ‘wake up call’ he needs minutes in the defense.
Huff is our best post player. Benching him isn’t going bring AG back or age Kadin by 2 years. He needs to play and develop chemistry with Sam and Trey.
Hauser was here for an entire year of redshirting and learning the defense. Of course in game is different and again he will improve but there is a very clear limit of what he can provide on the defensive end. Also that doesnt mean much. He had markus howard who was an extreme ball hog but also had defenses collapse on him for good looks for hauser. With Huff, we need to do something to wake him up. Benching doesn’t always mean playing reduced minutes. And hes only playing like 20 minutes a game anyways regardless. With Kadin you have someone who can at least start generating fouls and offensive rebounds (some of which lead to 3 pointers as the best time to a 3 is off an offensive rebound).
Thats fair. And I am 100% with you on the ball screens. I know you have been vocal about those and we 140% need to. And you are right. Some of it is play calling to. But Hauser and Huff also just seem so lacskidasical at times.
Redshirts run the other team’s defense. Hauser wasn’t practicing the packline. You are panicking after 6 games. The issue isn’t effort or that these guys have a bad attitude. That’s when you try to send a message and bench players. These guys need time on the court. Specifically Murphy, Hauser, and Huff together. They need to learn to communicate and play the defense together for this team to reach its potential. They don’t need some sort of punitive message sent just for the sake of it.
Im not panicking. Of course it is still early. But some of these closeouts and rotations have been HORRENDOUS regardless of chemistry. Tony wants the players fully committed to each defensive possession and I don’t think that’s been the entire case.
Disagree on Huff completely. He needs to play 28+ minutes a game. He can do things no one else on the roster can on both ends of the floor. Does he have limitations, sure, but so does everyone. He’s the 2nd best creator on offense not to mention he has proven he can consistently make outside jump shots and is by far the best rim protector. I do believe he needs to be more aggressive on offense or he needs to be put in more advantageous spots by the coaching staff.
Kadin is going to be a beast no doubt, and he needs to get a consistent chunk of minutes, but he is not the answer over Jay right now.
So either the offense needs to feature Jay and perhaps Sam in the post, or we need to go with the higher defensively minded players who have faster feet and reaction times.
So, here’s my hot take – and I won’t name names – but reading the posts on LRA the past few weeks, and especially since the Zags setback, has become painful. Doesn’t anybody own a mirror? My word, let’s all be grateful that the world doesn’t expect as much out of us as some of the so-called fans on this board do of 18-21 year-old Hoos basketball players. I’m sure other schools’ message boards are just as bad, or even worse. But I guess for a while there, I thought LRA was different. Put another way, and in the words of Aaron Rodgers a few years back, “Relax.” All that said, I’m sure our posters just want the best results possible for our team and they are frustrated. But some of these posts just don’t have a good look. Just my opinion. And, Go Hoos!
I think maybe you are projecting. Saying Jay Huff is slow on hedges and recovering to his man which makes after 4 years of evidence is not saying Jay Huff is a terrible person. It’s not all or nothing. Being critical is not being negative.
Of course there are some thing that are overblown. But No one here is bashing the players as people, but the on court performance has been pretty miserable. Even with being mindful that there was a lack of preseason practice and knowing that we will still be in a position to win the ACC. That plus COVID making people even more dependent on things like sports for a source of joy will bring out the cynicism in others. Heck I used to be so frustrated when Tony didn’t play Huff more the first 3 years after his redshirt (which probably led to his passiveness today but it also won us a natty and I am superstitious so I of course still wouldn’t change anything to mess with the 2019 season).
That being said going back to the mirror thing, I think when I look in the mirror I see someone who would horrendously struggle with hedges. Especially since Im 5’10, even if I were to recover the opposing guard would just lob it over me to my man. But I promise I make up for it with my heart #heartnotheight
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