Tons of current and past players posted this on their instagram. Some of them: Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome, Sam Hauser, Braxton, Trey Murphy, Reece, Kadin, Devon, Jack Salt, and on and on.
Itâs a shame that someone who played a key role on 3 ACC regular season championship teams will always have that last gaffe mentioned as part of the legacy.
I would guess as time goes on, people will remember 2019 and not a random tourney when we werenât supposed to go far anyways. For better or worse, only 2016, 18 and 19 stick in my head.
To be fair, Kihei had 5 years of plays to Webberâs one.
Kihei had a great run with many unforgettable plays. Iâll never forget his crafty stop-short to get Amin to foul out in a tight one with Oregon. That craven flopper was pulling shenanigans all night, so it was fitting he got DQed on a cheesy move.
TL;DNR - Even at times like this, I love Virginia basketball (h/t @BDragon)
I didnât get to watch our game live because I took the wrong side of the âwhat day will we be playingâ coin flip and made plans with my girlfriendâs family to go to Joshua Tree on Thursday. We all put our phones in airplane mode to avoid any spoilers (mostly for me, but also bc they are all WSU Cougs and therefore have a good amount of love for CTB) and had a wonderful day in the park. When we got back, I hid until my girlfriend got the recording of the game ready, just in case somehow the score might have popped up or the game might have otherwise been spoiled. And then I got on the roller coaster all of you had ridden about 8 hours earlier. When it ended, I turned my phone back on and saw the ~500 messages in the group text I have with some of my fraternity brothers that is mainly dedicated to uva basketball with a side helping of football and, more recently, baby pictures. I didnât have the heart to read through them, nor did I have it in me to get caught up on this game thread. But when I texted the group to let them know Iâd seen the game, they told me that theyâd had a big debate about whether they should try to let me know what happened in order to spare me the shock and pain that everyone watching in real time must have felt. And while I appreciated them for considering that option, I knew right away that I wouldnât have wanted that because if Iâd known the ending, I wouldnât have watched the game. Despite all the peaks and valleys, especially the lowest valley at the end, Iâm glad I watched it so I could have one last ride with this team. It wasnât always pretty. Shit, most of the time it was straight up ugly. But I feel so lucky that this group of guys was my team. One of the best and hardest things about âget old, stay oldâ is that you get to root for people instead of laundry. I donât think I need to explain why that is great, but the hard part is saying âgoodbyeâ when itâs over. That goes for the guys who have been here âsince Ralph Sampson hosted them on their recruiting visitâ and for the ones so new that I would need help picking out their âstache on a Pringleâs can and everyone in between. Beyond individual basketball players leaving, itâs also hard to say goodbye to this particular team. Iâm so proud to call this team âmy teamâ. Looking around college basketball, it seems like there are fewer and fewer fans that get to say that. So while I know weâll have a team next season and I canât wait to meet that team and based on our and CTBâs track record, I fully expect to be So Damn Proud of that team as well, Iâm so grateful for this team, warts and all.
Iâm also grateful for this group. While we might fly a little bit off the handle sometimes (yeah I read that Transfer thread before it closed), LRA has made these last couple seasons some of my favorites. The only thing better than UVA basketball alone is having a community to share it with - so thank you to all of you.