⛹ Leon Bond - Official Thread

McKneely, Rohde, Bond, Dunn, and Gertrude is going to be a vicious lineup.

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I’m perfectly fine with it. Imagine Manek or Nance trying to guard Bond?
This game is played on both ends - I can see him wearing out a bigger guy on offense.

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Yeah, probably a little bit of “not 100% invested” wallfowerism and a little bit of just being 6’10” or whatever. That ain’t front row in class pictures height.

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LOL- Fair point, fair point.

And now the part where I talk out of both sides of my face: my kids make the same face when pretending to smile for pics. The investment level/fit/happiness quotient is definitely coming through in the pic too. We all should have seen this coming before the rumors.

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Some guys thrive in a redshirt year. Unfortunately some don’t.

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He done well. Creighton fans have said that UVA done a great job getting him muscled up. We didn’t get nothing out of our investment

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Sort of. Kids develop naturally as well. I know my man Mike Curtis puts all his know how into our players but everyone gets bigger anyway

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I find it kind of funny of the way people talk about Curtis as if he has some industry secrets that other strength and conditioning programs aren’t doing.
I coach my kids soccer with a guy who was strength and conditioning coach at three different division one football programs and he said around the country everyone’s doing mostly the same things and has access to all the same and industry updates and advances

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What I want from Bond is the ability to legitimately defend the wing and the 4 on defense and play the wing on offense. That means his ability to handle the ball and shoot the 3 needs to have improved. If he can do that, he can fill in for multiple people and add a lot of versatility to our lineups.

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How is he able to manage that? Those are usually full time gigs at one school

Voice text - meant to say was

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That makes sense, though I would imagine the devil is in the details. Curtis seems like he’s pretty data-driven; I linked this story before, but it’s a cool read on how he’s incorporating data into their training plans:

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Yeah, even just on the emphasis on data, different S&C guys can interpret the same metrics in very different ways. Curtis also operates within Bennett’s system in a pretty nuanced way (e.g., how does X player need to be able to move given their role, our sets, etc.). Not all teams are as system-y as Virginia and as a result, probably less nuanced in their conditioning goals for each player.

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The following contains some thoughts about redshirting. Viewer discretion advised:

Another “anti-redshirt” thought on Leon: think about Dunn. Think about how we used him in the summer and in the B/W game (I think) and early on – more as a big wing / big guard, than a post player, right? But when we put him in games, we seemed to realize that he could guard not only jumbo 3s (like Melendez from IL) and stretch 4s, but also 4s that play around the basket (e.g., kid from Wake, Mutts, even Flip) and even a 5 in a real pinch.

Basically, there’s stuff you learn when you actually play a kid in actual games. And presumably that info is helping the staff figure out how to slot him next year and who to bring in.

What have we not learned about Leon because we chose not to play him? (And as the Dunn example shows, this is perfectly consistent with those of you who believe in the Tony as Lenny from Memento thing, who is unable to plan beyond the next 10 minutes – Dunn showed stuff in real time that we didn’t seem to know he could do, until we actually had him in games. In other words, this isn’t JUST a next year / advance planning thing, even though I brought it up in that context). Game tape is good. You’ll see stuff. You’re not just delaying Leon by a year. You’re delaying your own understanding of his game and what pieces you will need when it comes to crazy portal season. (by the way – this is also why I asked my crazy question to J-Willy about Blake the Snake that went over like a lead balloon.)

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Jean Claude Van Damme Eye Contact GIF
I clicked it by accident. My eyes…

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So, what you’re saying is when you redshirt a guy, he doesn’t play in the games?

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We have a bias because we only see games. The staff may have learned similar lessons about Bond during practice as he played against the starters.

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Agree, but hence my point about Dunn: in that case, they seemed to learn a lesson from games that they weren’t necessarily learning in practice.

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I agree- two things about redshirting-

  1. Apparently players don’t even *practice the packline defense (ie: Sam Hauser was full time Green Team while redshirting), therefore delaying his understanding *until he was no longer redshirting the following year. This may have been a reason that it took Sam a little while to grow into his defensive role EVEN AFTER redshirting for a full season. I would hope that while redshirting our guys would be playing the packline so that they could IMMEDIATELY contribute after their redshirt season without it taking until 1/2 way through the ACC conference.

  2. It’s one thing, on the green team to play and practice against the starters, who are ALWAYS going to play packline defense so they know how to stop and contain players (this is what we do to our opponents all year- as the BEST defense in the country), so theoretically all of our opponents are NOT going to be as good defensively and therefore Bond/Dunn etc. should look BETTER against them in a real game. So when we redshirt because we don’t think that our players look ready because they can’t beat a perennial “Top 5 defense” during practice, it doesn’t mean that they cannot contribute against the teams on our schedule that are NOT top 5 defensively.

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