Is the Nashville Banner still a thing?
I agree with @DFresh11 that CTB appeared to mentally check out years before he retired, as evidenced (via @HoozGotNextās excellent reporting) by his not going out at all on normally important recruiting weekends and not even going to some of the summer shoe company tournaments
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I think āchecked outā is a bit too harsh. He still worked hard and he still coached well. But I think he was struggling with the lack of an āoffseasonā anymore and the constant, 12-months-a-year demands on his time, and he was trying hard to balance his work with his personal obligations. He mentioned something at his press conference about being a better father and husband, and it didnāt get much attention because of all the focus on NIL, but I got the sense it was a more important factor than he was willing to let on. I donāt think itās a coincidence that he came to his decision on one of the rare occasions he got to spend alone with his wife.
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Well put. I agree with all points.
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I think he burned out.
I know how real that is in teachingā¦ā¦it happened to me and coaching is teaching, plus some.
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Wasnāt Penney here for only the 2019-20 season?
Just came across this, truly the most heartbreaking recruitment of the TB era for me.
https://x.com/kon2knueppel/status/1912538509056901533?s=46
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Trevor Keels stung as well
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It shouldnāt be that heartbreaking. He was never really all that close to committing here. He was Duke all the way. And i believe he said it was Marquette in the small possibility that he didnāt go to Duke. I think we got puffed up a bit on this one because it was never really close.
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Will also add on the āheartbreakā point: early on, I was skeptical that he was that good! Then, as I started to realize he was that good, Duke was in the picture, and it didnāt seem like we had a great chance. It seemed like he was down to Duke or local. Duke took our lane.
For me, I still think London Johnson was the most heartbreaking recruit. Such a fiasco and I think heād have been great with Tony. Instead he is ā¦ I forget ā¦ back in the G league? Seemed like he was about to go overseas and got a G league deal
Looked it up: averaging 13 mpg and 3 ppg for the Cleveland chargeā¦ watch your back, Ty! 
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Hot take? Dre was the best and worst thing to happen to Bennett.
We used to be Houston. Then Dre won us the title. And, poof, Akil and Darion turned into Mckoy, Hauser, Bvp, and Groves
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Ok, well one of those listed is a whole different caliber player than the other 3.
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I think the point is we went from recruiting ACC defensive POYs and flipped to offensive focused players at the position.
Sam was really good, but the best thing I can say about his d is that his positioning got a lot better over time.
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Have had this friendly banter with @Gna2r
My view: this overlooks Gill, who was a dawg offensively but wasnāt Zay, Darion, Akil on defense.
There was always an offense/defense tradeoff with our 4s / small 5s. Heck throw Tobey in there, too.
Dre ended the tradeoff because he was awesome. The only thing his departure caused is just that we were back in tradeoff territory.
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Or he went back to the Mike Scott prototype, more Dre than Atkins or Mitchellā¦.
We consciously traded power for finesse.
Tonyās PF lineage through 2019:
Akil
Darion
AG (a pre-NIL transfer, so not really the prototype, and flanked by the players both above and below him on this list)
Wilkins
Mamadi
Players recruited post title. HGN parlance even changed to āskilled forwardā position:
McKoy (emergency recruit)
Hauser
Igor
BVP
Dunn
Traudt
Groves
Cofie
Only Dunn is even remotely close to prime Bennett, and he was supposed to be a guard. Iāve no numbers to support this, but defense got worse at least in part because hedging got worse. Blocker/Mover got worse because these guys didnāt screen as well. Chasing the next Dre was a massive net negative.
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And letās not forget Murphy as a skilled forwardā¦ his defense was not good initially but has gotten better in the league recently.
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edit: didnāt realize this was the same thread awk but I like my gif use so Iām not deleting
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Whoops! Beautiful take HT, concise too. Iāll take (or in this case, create) any opportunity to appreciate Akil and Darion. Absolute monsters
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