I’m just not sure what people upset or annoyed with negativity on the UVA internet expect? When you have a negative season on the court the conversation about that negative season will skew pessimistic. Only way to avoid it is to not go to a struggling team’s fan pages and message boards.
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This has been covered, but plenty of first years have contributed under CTB. Either Issac could easily see 15-20mpg. We won’t need them to make a major impact, but be a threat when on the court and make 3s or we could see an out of left field contribution (see KC in 19) from say Bond or Johnson. I think we are all still focused on Casey not living up to expectations as a first yr and Jabri being a bust and of course M & M disappearing this season
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Guys will continue to improve, get stronger and the D will def be better next year, no doubt
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I think the issue is that there are now one or two too many sites for this UVA sports fan market size, so it’s diluted them a bit too much. I’ve found that LRA is the most knowledgeable basketball site, so I enjoy hovering here because of that specific focus and some really great insight.
As more sites and networks have entered the college sports market as a whole, evolved, consolidated, traded hands via acquisition, etc, it seems they’re chasing the same total user market, but users shift between them based on how they perceive their current experience and value of the content at the time. Unfortunately at times, some of the experience is based on the other people on that site at the time.
Seems like some consolidation may be coming at some point.
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And just to add to this, I don’t think a lot of folks are expecting like a return to 1-seed status next year, just improvement and hopefully a team that can make the NCAA tournament. That seems fair enough when you consider we’ll have a more experienced roster with more depth of talent. But will have to see.
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Absolutely agree. 4/4 - top 4 in league top 4 seed in the NCAAT are realistic goals
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Completely agree. The main ones are this site, thesabre (longest running), the rivals site, and 247, right?
i’ve completely given up ever going to 247. i check thesabre a decent bit, mostly for baseball, lacrosse, tennis, and olympic sport updates as the sport-specific gurus tend to post a lot there. interestingly i’ll listen to the rivals Cavs_Corner podcast but have never been a paying member there.
would love to see numbers on the overlap of fans on those sites (particularly paying for access at rivals, 247, and thesabre EDGE). would also enjoy consolidation of a few.
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Earnest post alert: Interesting meta discussion here of UVa fansites. I’ll just add that I enjoy the hoops banter on this site quite a bit (will try to limit my bad takes, I swear), and HGN’s recruiting process insights are invaluable. Also very much enjoy Kris Wright’s analysis over at the Sabre, and that alone makes the EDGE subscription a worthwhile investment. I hope their new initiatives bear fruit.
Support good hoops journalism. Peace.
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I don’t pay for sports news online anywhere. I can glean what I need from the free side of anything. If the free side closes, I can do without. That said, I’d never support the prudish, holier-than-thou, lopsided moderation of Kris Wright and the sabre. Any consolidation that includes anything sabre-ish is only asking for their current state of affairs, which apparently, isn’t good.
i’d be fascinated to hear more about “prudish”, i don’t think i’m following what exactly that means with respect to a uva fan site… just that he/the site limits discussion via cutting threads?
i don’t ever really read their content, just go for the posters (again, specifically baseball, lax, tennis, swimming) who are very connected and have good insights.
the only issue with the ignore feature for a high volume poster who feels emboldened to criticize more loudly given our mediocrity this season is that when you read a thread half the posts are responses to hidden posts. But it’s still better.
I do have opportunities for improvement… taking it under advisement… I can be too abrupt…. Mostly because it’s when I have short breaks and don’t fully fledge out my thoughts. I’ll work on it
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When you posted that picture of the 92-93 team, I started reminiscing and looking at old stats. YB started most of his 3rd year but Chris Alexander jumped ahead of him in 94-95.
Big Chris became such a great defender and crazy length. Always say if 95 Chris was that good in 93 we could have been Final 4 team
Also think Jay Willy was in and out as starters. 94-95 was stacked
This is me pre-emptively calling for the Reece McKneely Bond Traudt Kadin line up followed by the London Johnson Armaan Taine Jayden Igor line up. Platoons.
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I’ll go with Reece, Franklin, Murray, Gardner & Caffaro. Johnson, McKneely, Igor, Traudt & Kadin.
But no one other than Reece needs to play 30+ mins.
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So what … You could say that for every team in America. And, Dre was never going anywhere.
On a basic level, predicting college bball success at an elite level is pretty easy. Of the 8 UVA players who played in the 2019 Championship game, 4 currently are on NBA rosters and 2 are in the G-League on 2 way contracts. Of those 6 currently tied to the NBA, none was ranked lower than 64 coming out of high school. Incoming freshmen rankings for the next two years are 24 (optimistically Johnson), 48 (Traudt) 55 (McKneely) and 63 (Bond). Add those to Reese (71) and Shedrick (68) and there’s the core of the next team that could be elite. Add in Taine and Igor and maybe Dunn and that’s Final Four potential by Reese’s fourth year. Everything should be focused on that. But to accomplish that, (and this is where things have changed since 2016) everyone has to stay. So that means playing Taine and Igor more this year (in a year where wins are going to be relatively few regardless) to see whether they can be part of that next elite team and playing Traudt, McKneely and Bond meaningfully next year, even if that comes at the expense of Gardner, Papi, etc. (God forbid Kihei and Stattmann.)
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We tried to get Tiny to listen to that in December but apparently the Ms ship has sailed
I think your numbers may be off. I only count 2 players from the 2019 team on a regular NBA roster right now. I think the rest are on two ways, 10 day or G league. Also, Hunters 247 composite recruiting rank was 91, above your 64 cut off.
I agree with most of this. Unless Tony’s changed his stripes suddenly, 99% chance that barring injury 3 of the starters will be Reece Franklin and Gardner. Don’t know between Shedrick and Caffaro, but both will play. 5th starter TBD. I’ll guess Johnson if we get him, Murray if we don’t.
Bennett’s been playing only 7 or 8 guys since 2018. He played 10 in 2017, but if Nichols didn’t get kicked off, I doubt Salt or Reuter play much at all and Mamadi gets less time. Hopefully he gets back to playing 8.5-10 guys like he did prior to 2018.
Hopefully only Reece gets more then 30…I’d peg him for 35 if Johnson comes, close to 40 if he doesn’t. Hoping Franklin only gets 30, but with Bennett’s historical usage patterns, he’ll get 35 unless he goes back to the pre-2018 rotations where even senior year Brogdon only got 32 mpg.
Traudt gets whatever’s left of the 80 after Sheds Papi and Jayden. Hopefully Bennett reverts to his prior pattern of no big men getting more than 30mpg.
Murray, Milicic, McKneeley and (hopefully) Johnson pick up the 50-70 minutes left over after the posts, Beekman and Franklin. Maybe Bond or Dunn if they come in more ready than anticipated. Don’t see how McCorkle gets ahead of enough of those guys to get time. Can’t really see more than 2-3 guys picking up those minutes.
Like most people here, I see 23-24 as our next great season and if Beekman comes back for a 5th year in 24-25 and we don’t suffer too much attrition, we might be favorites that season. So I’m hoping the younger guys who will be around for those seasons get time the rest of this season and 22-23, but given Bennett’s history of valuing each game and season individually and trying to win in the present, I don’t anticipate Gardner, Franklin and Caffaro losing minutes to develop the younger guys unless the younger guys are good enough in the present to earn minutes. I’d be very pleasantly surprised if he does do that.
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