Imma self reply and expand on this. When you are your coach’s guy it is a BIG deal. See Kihei and iMac etc with TB. If Jacari is Ryans guy that does wonders for the players confidence and leeway etc
My guess is Ryan gives players more leeway especially the ones he just paid million dollars to bring in. If the players wanna have a great team thats a big deal
Just my opinion, without seeing our new roster play a game in an UVA uniform that shooting guard is the one position that was not upgraded in the offseason. iMac is starting all season long on this newly built roster.
I’m a typical fence sitter on this. I think Jacari has a wider skillset or at least potential for a wider skillset: he can have the ball in his hands more and seems to have a better bag of tricks for getting into and scoring in the lane. Maybe potential to be a better defender? Haven’t watched much on that side.
But iMac has proven his superpower at the high major level already, and that’s super valuable. TBD how much Jacari’s various skills translate at the high major level.
Just read Cuts response on this and I basically agree, except I think he undersells this part:
… I mean, that’s a BFD! If Jacari is anywhere in iMac’s ballpark on that, then Jacari is likely the winner, given his other attributes.
His superpower was underperforming in key games….
He averaged 11.2 in our nine games vs. high majors that made the tournament. He averaged 15.7 vs. everyone else. (He also averaged two fewer shot attempts in those games, too — always struggling to get his shot off vs. athleticism.)
I think there were two issues with iMac here…
Missed free throws
I think a quick helpful exercise to answer the question that’s been posed is: how many different D1 teams is IMac starting for this year vs. how many for White. I think IMac probably has a starting role on all but a handful (and his offer list reflects that). Not sure you can say the same for Jacari
That was true for the first half of the season but seemed to change midway when the team started playing more freely as a whole and improved offensively (while tanking defensively).
I like that exercise. Though, how much of that would be related to @haney’s point:
iMac being a known quantity makes it more likely he would start on more teams, IMO. Predicting Jacari is a trickier exercise: maybe he ends up like Chaz Lanier, where he’s able to translate a lot of his game, especially from outside the arc, or maybe he’s more of a peripheral player on offense if only the catch-and-shoot translates.
I’m pretty excited to see Jacari play in Odom’s system. While individual players from last season may have had one or two skills that were better than incoming players, our overall athleticism has increased markedly. The obvious difference between us and the teams in the SEC + St. John’s , etc. last season was a glaring shortage of athleticism and physicality from our guys. The trio of Dallin, Jacari and Malik should fit very well into Odom’s pressing style. White looks extremely quick in his video and is known as an excellent defender (Lindy’s magazine had him as the best defender in his conference headed into his senior year). Last year’s players are gone and I’ve let them go in my mind. Go Hoos!
If we just replaced iMac with Jacari, it would be a close call, but we also added Thomas, and Lewis, who can and will play the 2 at times. If you look at the backcourt as a whole, we massively upgraded and that’s not even really a debate.
I just remember how excited we all were to get TJ Power last year….which tells me a) we’ve massively upgraded our transfer haul this year, and b) you never really know anything until we start playing games.
LOL, yeah I hear ya. But at least we’ve seen these guys for 3+ years in college bball. All we had from T. J. was Peach Jam.
Jacari has shot almost 41% from deep on almost 500 attempts over his career.
I don’t care the conference - that’s not far off.
And, kind of like iMac, now he’s not going to have to be the alpha scorer, drawing the main defensive focus. Which in theory should lead to more open looks/better driving lanes/etc
Tj power never played in peach jam. The nit equivalent.
It is nice to have players who have played well in their A/B games.
We just need two of the guards to hit
Someone must have done some stats work on this stuff (3pt volume / percentage / general usage changes when changing conferences). I was just eyeballing Ashworth. He dropped from like 43% to 35%.
There are too many variables probably for a good comparison
Jacari is a good athlete and experienced, both of which will help. (Much better than Ashworth)
I’d expect some drop off, just query how much.
FWIW, you can see Jacari’s A and A+B numbers highlighted in the screen cap below:
The % are good but the volume is super low (only 7 A games and 8 B games)
The free throw rate is a bit concerning. Wondering if he struggles getting into the lane
