Being a college basketball coach would be cool, but betting your career on trying to convince 17 year olds of what to do would be excruciating.
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Looking forward to adding Kon to my group of sawftest players in college
Joining fishboy at Creighton and Lost and Confused at Texas
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Didnāt even think about how awful of a foul merchant Kon will be at duke
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Fouls? On duke? Hahahaha.
Heās the merchant; heāll be āsellingā the fouls
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Omg youāre right lol
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Youāre not wrong, and at this point, I donāt ever see this changing. But, CTB likes a challenge, and may be what keeps around longer. Maybe the opposite is true too. I just canāt fathom putting so much time and effort into something and have it turn out the way this one did. It really sucks for the staff. Personally, I donāt think itās that big a deal, weāve had so much success lately in recruitingā¦ canāt win them all.
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anybody know how to do one of those face mash up photos? Wondering what the combination of Mike Dunleavy Jr. & Kyle Singler looks likeā¦
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I had a similar thought the other day when someone posted a picture of Izzo posing with some high school kids on a recruiting trip. Heās gotta be thinking, āIām a 70-year old hall of fame coach with a national championship and many Final Fours, and Iām sitting in a high school cafeteria trying to look happy while posing with three teenagers.ā I would despise the recruiting aspect of being a college coach.
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Kyle played around 19 mpg, which is more than Kon will be playing his first year at Duke
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Gonna pick on my guy @Cuts_from_The_Corner a little bit here, kinda:
https://twitter.com/CutsfromCorner/status/1705196499548664097?s=20
Theyāre all the type to go to Duke. One thing I remember about the slew of LRA podcasts of former UVa greats during the pandemic was that there was frequently a question about who they rooted for growing up or something similar ā maybe who they really wanted to recruit them. It was always or almost always Duke. They loved Kobe and they loved Duke! Itās just a basic fact about most successful athletes ā they like success. These are not generally Washington Generals fans, if you know what I mean.
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Just like if you ask most kids what law school theyād want to go to - theyād say Harvard, or most musicians what conservatory - theyād say Julliard, aspiring scientists - MIT. They wouldnāt go āwell considering scholarships and geographic preferences as well as class sizeā¦ā
Also itās funny, we did actually win one recruitment on these lines - Traudt. He wanted to play at the biggest, shiniest program, and hated it!
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Iām not sure if itās emotionally helpful or hurtful to you all ā for me it was helpful, but Iām also someone who partially got over a fear of flying by reading about famous airplane crashes ā your favorite UVa player wanted to go to Duke. Odds are that he now realizes that was wrong, so you can forgive him for it! 
(I should add, itās an over-comeable thing, and I do think we will beat Duke one of these daysā¦)
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Bryant?
I canāt remember specifics ā I just remember a lot of Duke love.** It was both jarring yet somehow nice to internalize.
** Not universal. There are always exception.
So the kid that commited to Duke yesterday was or was not in Richmond yesterday?
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That might be very true, but with 3rd yearmen McKneely and Rohde the presumed starters (and with Gertrude and Bond backing them), Kneuppel might have struggled to get 19 mpg at Virginia. And, it wouldnāt be his offensive game limiting his PT. It would be his defense.
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A few more post-mortem thoughts before I mentally move on:
- again, sorry to pick on Cuts, but on what basis were people convincing themselves they knew anything about Kon? He did significantly fewer interviews than the typical recruit. I canāt even remember hearing his voice. He has no social media. I had no basis for knowing anything about the kid.
- I think we will beat Duke for a certain type of kid, but itās gonna be rare (at least in the current state of the world). And I think we can get a 5-star, but it will also be rare. And beating Duke for a 5-star, will be super rare.
- I think Wilkins is more in our wheelhouse. Never mind the family connection. He has 2nd contract aspirations. Weāve done well with his player type (as I understand it, I havenāt really dug into any tape). Probably the best ratio of coming in rank/esteem to guarantee $$. Dre, TM3, (sorta) Hauser, and now RD (fingers crossed). Which are also currently the queens on the chess board in the NBA. But still, itās gonna be toughā¦ Nique is a wildcard. The SEC bluebloods and newbloods and nouveau riche (so, all of them), will be tough to beat. Never mind if Kansas or Duke or UNC come calling.
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Preferring easy street and rooting for the bad guy are human nature.
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Not really. 2017 was a transition year for the backcourt. Coach Bennett struggled with the starting line up. Thompson started 14 games, Shayok started 14 games, Guy started seven games and Jerome started five games. As both Guyās and Jeromeās starts came toward the end of the season, it might be suggested that neither Thompson nor Shayok were performing as Coach Bennett wanted. In fact, Shayok was obviously not a good fit at UVa as his success at Iowa State indicated. I think that Guy eventually overtaking players who were not firmly established starters is a bit different than Knueppel bypassing two players who, in all likelihood, will have started the previous year. Thatās an assumption, but one Iām willing to take.
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