Hilariously untrueā¦ coaching beats a bad GM who overpays in the portal for bad talent.
Thatās what you are trying to say.
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It actually doesnātā¦ weāve seen it the last 6 years.
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https://x.com/prestonwillett/status/1897142303355232382?s=46&t=60E4X0iAKwGj-OEWmmLivA
This is corny but I really do love being the program people say this about, and I hope whoever the next guy is continues it.
Obviously want to win first and foremost, but I do want to feel like the good guys too.
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if he ends up here will be interesting to see what he can do from a recruiting standpoint. Heās never been head coach at a school that has the theoretical advantages we have (basketball rich area, lots of $, recent natty, etc)
Thatās funny because when things were going well for Bennett we kept hearing how UVA was ruining college basketball.
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Also Iām going to miss Ham. Another great coach who represented the ACC well. End of an era. The last golden era of ACC coaching.
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I hate being the lone voice in the wilderness on this stuff, and I swear Iām not trying to be contrary or antagonistic!
BUT!
Maybe we could try a little bad. Maybe weād enjoy being a team our opponents hate. A squad of dawgs instead of a squad of choirboys. Get some mother fuckers and earn a little awe. Be the elbow instead of the face, for once.
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No, I get it. If we hired Will Wade, I would definitely be on board and be pretty excited about what was about to happen on the court.
But I have grown to enjoy that every time I say Iām a Virginia fan people reflexively say how much they love Tony Bennett.
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I would also argue that other teams did kind of hate playing us, and at the best times in the Tony era we had motherfuckers on our team. Ty and Kyle were absolutely motherfuckers on the court, and our interior defensive pieces from 14-19 were going to make it miserable on you every time you came in the paint. I think Tony started leaning in a little too much into a more timid personality type after 2019 for my taste, but even then they were all good dudes and we were still a pretty good team!
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I do not think thatās what people like Ham are referencing when they talk about ādoing things the right way.ā Itās the off-court stuff (or lack thereof), how the athletes develop as people beyond their basketball skills, how TB and co treat others. I think you can keep that standard while still being tough on-court.
And this might not exactly be basketball-relevant, but consider that the most recent thing the BoV has done is to have a special session to review the results of an investigation into the leadership practices at UVA Health, which then prompted an immediate resignation by the leader.
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You donāt think we were the team the league hated between 2014-2020?
Maybe that first ACC title team was fine, both because the league hadnāt learned to hate us yet and because my memory recalls that stylistically that team played and won prettier.
But starting in 2015 especially when the team really leaned hard into the defense, both during the undefeated start and then to compensate for Justinās absence down the stretch, we became hated for our pace. Atkins made his ād***-swingingā comment. Pitino complained (in a genuinely flattering way) that we abused teams as relative grown men. The chorus of opposing fans started complaining (in an annoying way) that our defense was only good because the refs let us foul consistently. ESPN let Myron Medcalf publish an article crying that we were ābad for basketball.ā It got so bad that the NCAA had to change the freaking FOM rules and extend the 3-point line in response to Tonyās defense!
I think it took off in 2017; the team leaned more and more into that identity without Gill/Brogdon/Tobey around, then London Perrantes became a bit of an a-hole on the court (anyone want to pull up the image of him smelling his fingers?), then you added in Kyleās man-bun adding fuel.
And of course, Jeromeās got dog and Kihei pissed a lot of people off, we started Ivan Drago at center who repeatedly broke opponents with hard screens, and Mamadi stared down Ehab Amin. There was the Auburn game ending that ticked people off who wanted to complain that the fix was in to give CBS the āupset to redemptionā narrative for ratings.
And then in 2020 we went right back to defensive basics, winning āfirst to 50ā all over again.
So, like, Iām plenty used to UVA being a hated program, and Bennett had plenty of a-hole players who played with an edge and pissed off both opposing players and fans alike.
Yeah, weāre āchoir boysā in the sense that the worst off the court behavior we saw was Nicholsā āhabitā (which, at least, never actually hurt anyone other than himself) and the hilarious embarrassment of Nolte and his Hawaiian shirt (which frankly is a story that couldāve happened to a lot of us at that time in our lives). Otherwise, yeah, guys go to class, stay on the good side of the ACC, and donāt make news for mistreating women. Darn?
Obviously the post-2016 recruiting classes have returned poorer results compared to the success stories of the 2010-16 classes, and maybe some of that has to do with having fewer MFāers on the roster. But (a) itās not like weāre totally devoid of them (the way Rohde is playing, Iād pick him for a blacktop pickup game any day of the week, kid plays with balls), and (b) Tony always appreciated hyper-competitive players, because once upon a time he was that guy himself, itās how he scrapped his way from Wisconsin backwaters into the NBA.
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11 posts were merged into an existing topic: 
2025 (Non-UVa) Coaching Carousel
lol - remind me how many even NIT level teams VCU has played since January 1?
Since 12/18 New Mexico is 17-3 including a win over VCU.
Theyāve been held under 70 3 times in that span in wins at Wyoming and vs San Diego State and a loss at San Diego State.
2nd fastest Power 7 team in the country behind Alabama and 19th in defensive rating.
Average 82.3 points per game - 20th in nation.
I do love VCUs steal rate at 35th in the nation - virtually identical to New Mexico at 38th.
VCU def rating is 6th
Average Net rating for Mountain West is 125
Average Net rating for A 10 is 136
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Also Iāve seen a lot of mentions about New Mexico not shooting a lot of threes.
It might surprise folks to know they are shooting a higher percentage on their threes than VCU.
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It would surprise me, because the stats Iām looking at say itās incorrect. (34.7 v 34.2 per Kenpom)
But why the Odom blasting?
Odom and Pitino have very similar resumes and backgrounds. They both are sons of famous coaches. They both just won their mid major plus leagues.
Very similar resumes. Feels like it really comes down to how you evaluate Pitinos time at Minnesota. As a positive (plenty of high major experience, learn from his mistakes), a negative (heās shown he canāt do it in a place that was difficult to win, but not as difficult as it is rn), or neutral.
Edit - fwiw, sports reference has it slightly the other way, which I suspect is what youāre looking at. Kenpom sometimes includes data that the others donāt. Like non-D1 games. Letās call it a tie
also, even if true, it also wouldnt surprise me because percentage made and percentage taken are measuring two different things
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Is it possible weāre putting too much stock in his Minnesota tenure? He did some good things there but was super young at the time, and Minnesota is not an easy place to win. Rosey view is he learned from those mistakes and would do much better with the next P4 opportunity. Would also be a hire where Iād really like to see how the staff shakes out before fully judging.
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It depends. How much stock are we putting in it? I laid out three variationsā¦
For the record, for me - it balances to a neutral. I think heād be a very intriguing candidate. I think the āfitā stuff is a bit made up / under-theorized.
If he wins, none of the āI donāt see the fitā folks are gonna be like āThe wins are nice, but what about the fit?ā
The Fit convo is basically trying to predict if he will be a good coach hereā¦
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one important variable is looking at tenure pre 2021/2022 and post. Being a head coach in those two windows is almost like two different jobs because of NIL and the portal.
That makes Pitinoās tenure at Minnesota even more complicated to evaluate imo.
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Dave you were the one arguing you wanted mckneely to shoot more 3s even if his percentages drop.
The percent difference is nrgligible compared to the volume difference on 3pt attempts between VCU and New Mexico
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Itās the sort of thing Iād want to ask him about in an interview:
- Looking back, what would you have done differently at the time, rules and landscape being what they were then?
- Had the rules and landscape been what they are now, how would you have done things differently?
- How do you view the UVA job as different than Minnesota, and how would you approach or leverage those differences (support, profile, facilities, geography, conference affiliation, etc.) to achieve greater and/or more consistent success?
Maybe in some ways asking questions like this is leading him to being able to excuse failure. But at a bare minimum Iād want to ensure (a) heād concretely learned something valuable from the hard lessons and (b) had really thought hard about how to apply those lessons while incorporating both the new NIL/revenue/Portal landscape as well as the improved platform UVA would offer.
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