In practice, though, Virginia hasn’t always placed their personnel in positions to succeed against opposing frontcourt matchups.
No, sir. That’s not what we do here, as anyone who remembers taking a casual look at Gardner Webb’s lineup and seeing a small ball high-scoring 5, and thinking to themselves, well that’s a terrible matchup for Salt, but the good news is we have a few guys (Diakite, Brax, Dre) for whom that matchup would be a walk in the park, but then we started Salt and Wahoo nation proceeded to hyperventilate for about an hour or so… Fun times.
The above paragraph is perhaps a bit too critical. (Perhaps…)
The first step to using Virginia’s frontcourt talent effectively? Playing the right players in the right matchups. The ‘Hoos have improved in this aspect as each combo’s strengths and weaknesses become apparent, which provides reason for optimism.
I think Ben’s correct. The reason Tony is headed to the HOF is because he eventually gets it right. The reason Tony can sometimes make us hyperventilate is that EVENTUALLY can often feel like a long time.
To me, the reason for this boils down to one straightforward number: 5.38. That’s how many fouls Shedrick has committed per 40 minutes this season.
I don’t agree. This is overly simplistic as an explanation. He’s only marginally higher than last year. And he fouled out twice earlier this season and retained his starting spot. And I think he’s pressing in limited minutes recently, so it’s hard to draw conclusions. I think the causal factor for the minutes drop was the 3-man motion offense. I think the reason he’s disappeared entirely is a mystery, and I don’t think we will get a satisfactory answer for it, unfortunately… (I should add – fouling is a contributory factor, but not the factor, and probably not even the most important one, IMO).
I think the reason Shedrick isn’t playing is because he and Gardner aren’t playable together on offense. Gardner plays 24 mpg and Shedrick hasn’t played a lick of those remaining 16m, so yeah not the whole problem, but guards can’t get any room when two guys need to be 15 feet or less from the hoop
Almost have to go to a lot of B/M tonight, right? At least when Burns is in the game? Allows us to get either Papi or Kadin on the court and the entire offense is supposed designed to tire out the opponent. Seems our best way to take advantage of Burns being fat and out of shape. Will be interesting because you might be able to pick the winner tonight just by knowing Burns’s minutes played
Yup. I was talking about this preseason. We need at least one shooter in the front court. But then with Kadin BVP you don’t really have a scorer. BVP streaky and Kadin the modern screen and roll/dunker spot/jump shot here and there.
To be fair though I would take Kadin’s defense over Jayden’s inefficient offense because Kadin can still score off reece and kihei creating. This benching has also killed Kadin’s confidence I think. He was hitting 3s and jump shots in Vegas and Michigan game. And I think Kadin would also benefit from having Ryan Dunn at the 4/let Ryan Dunn shoot some 3s. Maybe it helps get his rhythm and confdience back as well and BVP is only 32% from 3 ( a lot of them open).
I also realize some here would say “But Jayden scored 20 vs hokies. without him we get blown out”. Additions and subtractions dont happen in a vacuum. It would mean Kihei Reece and Armaan, our more efficient shooters, getting more of the volume of shots. With the threats of Kadin and Dunn rolling to the rim maybe it opens Armaan up more. And the benefit we would get both defensively and on the boards would be huge.
Edit: I still love rooting for Jayden though. He’s such a likeable player and hope he always proves me wrong/makes me feel silly.
Agree - and throw “we don’t currently run a screen and roll offense” onto the list of reasons why Kadin’s minutes have gone down. But I still think none of these answer the question why his minutes went into the mid-single digits and then disappeared entirely. They are fine answers to why his minutes might have slipped from 20+ to 10+. But none of them are good or sufficient answers for why his minutes slipped all the way to zero (which, as far as I can tell, is unprecedented in the Bennett era, for a guy who started half the season to not get a minute of PT, absent an injury).
We’re all speculating and none of this is true/just to kill time anyways but Im in the “Kadin saw his playing time diminish a little and then responded poorly/dog house” camp. Will have egg on my face when it’s a “Kadin is struggling medically again/his brain is jello after 50 hits to the head”.
I agree with you on the idea of pairing RD with KS in the starting lineup. Like you said let RD shoot some threes and space the floor on offense. On defense I feel like they could be beast together. Sometimes I question Jaydens shot selection and he is also not great at finishing around the rim. He also has at least a couple defensive lapses every game it seems like.
I think you should rephrase the “inefficient offense” part a bit. I don’t think a 106.5 offensive rating on a 27% shot percentage and 25.4 possession percentage is inefficient. Is it amazing? No, but it’s only a little worse than Armaan’s on higher volume.
Also, Jayden is really our only ‘plus’ offensive rebounder. Sheds was okay at 7.9%, but Jayden is at 10.6%. Nobody is really even all that close.
