Offseason Takeaways (Blog)

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Boo!

(Like a ghost, not like a UVA football fan)

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Is the anticipation that we will know who - if anyone - is redshirting next Monday because they will be in street clothes?

I thought redshirts dressed and warmed up but didn’t play. If someone doesn’t play in what is likely to be a blowout, then you have your answer.

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What @WFS_HOO said, plus sometimes Tony mentions it (eg, radio interview)

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CTB will usually mention it in passing in one of the first couple of post-game pressers

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Happy Halloween everyone!

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What’s the commit timeline for Freitag and Perry?

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Great tidbit about possibly hitting the transfer portal for wings. Programs who really push NIL seem to go after wings the most so UVA has to find the right guy that fits if they have to go look for that position after the season.

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The part about Buchanan redshirting is interesting. Continuing with my analogy of Buchanan to a young Bill Walton, fresman/1st could not play in the early 1970s. Walton had his version of a redshirt year.
Same for the great David Thompson, whom some have compared Elijah Gertrude to.

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Thanks for the writeup, HGN. Can you (or anyone) elaborate on this: “Now because team’s are managing their rosters differently due to transfers, everybody has room to take their shot at a suddenly popular summer blow-up.” What’s the change to roster management that’s behind this? Smaller rosters? Or something else?

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I’d be curious to hear HGN’s longer thoughts on that, too. My view was either:
(1) more roster turnover b/c of portal means more slots
(2) less concern about too many mouths to feed because portal mitigates transfer concerns (meaning - no worries, we can backfill as needed quickly)
(3) some combo of those two

It’s an interesting dynamic, though, because as of a year ago, some were speculating an opposite change: that teams would decrease the number of schollys to make sure they could keep the smaller number of kids happy. (I think some of us thought that Tony might decrease schollies for that reason. But he might have changed his view after last season.) If that were the case, kids like Carr would’ve been pushed down the food chain, not up the food chain.

Just my opinion, which is often bad and wrong and – even if somehow correct in the end, still dumb: I actually think given the current dynamic in college hoops, there’s some argument for Carr to go down a level or so (like, A-10 or equivalent), and spend a year or two there with a solid coach in a solid program getting decent PT, not just hoping he develops off the court. But I have this odd idiosyncratic view that kids get better-er when they actually play more.

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I get that we need to add in the portal. But I’m hoping it’s just a big man. Which will be tough since we’re essentially going to be selling primary backup to Kadin and promise to play the year after.

BVP seems to be a good high character addition this year, but if we make a similar move next year then it really stunts the growth path of one of the 2022s or Gertrude. Maybe a PG makes sense but again tough sell.

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Obviously depending on what we see this year, I agree that we need to take an “intentional” approach to the portal. I don’t want Tony to take an “iron sharpens iron” approach. I’m generally not a fan of that approach, and I think it backfires more than it works. What I think works is putting people in the rights spots to succeed.

(It’s basically the reason Duke won it all in '15 and UNC nearly did last year – the coach was going with the “iron sharpens iron” approach and it was NOT working. What worked was player departures, helping the respective coaches back into a good rotation that they couldn’t figure out on their own.)

Bonus thought : as college hoops continues to make more $$, schools should have someone on staff “scouting” their signed / committed players. Blake and Elijah will be significantly different players (potentially) by next April than they are right now. And college coaches will have to make roster choices for the following year without the benefit of seeing those guys in a college environment, or even an environment they control. But the level of film on these guys just keeps going up, and I’d think we should take advantage of it. I suspect we already do this a little bit but probably not that much.

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I think this is very true. I havent seen lots of Blake B but he has that just raw enough look that every 6 months he is gonna have a different better version of himself

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Next Fall or when someone convinces them before then (most likely)

Yeah. Most teams are keeping shorter rosters, planning for transfers and/or hoping to avoid them.

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Ya I think a (singular, 1) transfer is totally fine. Even if it’s not a national championship team I’d like to see the ‘22, ‘23 classes(which may include Carr or late spring addition) with Taine, Kadin, and Reece. Totally understand there may be a hole or two but I would be totally fine just running that group out there with 1 veteran grad transfer in the front court possibly. I wouldn’t be mad if they didn’t even do that though and just rolled with Taine, Kadin, Reece, and ‘22- ‘23 guys.

Don’t know if I agree. Both of those guys are pretty finished products for high schoolers.

Obviously they need to make the jump to college ball which will be an adjustment, and they are working on their games so will grow some over the next 8 months, but their last high school year isn’t going to do a whole lot for them and they aren’t going to come out of it with completely new skills, at least not ones that are tested against acc players.

The earlier they start practicing at Jpj against guys like kadin and traudt and Franklin/beekman/taine/bond, the better. No high school tape is going to answer the question of whether they are ready for that and college games plus dealing with the newness of living away from home and college life. My guess is the extent TB stays in touch with them is to develop the relationship he has with them, and the only scouting he will be doing of them from here on will start when they step on the practice court. Man only has so much time.

Not sure what kind of resources Blake has out in Idaho, but Elijah is going to continue working with the skills guys he’s been working with the last few years and could very well make significant improvement in his ball handling and shooting before he arrives on the UVA campus. Both Blake and Elijah will definitely continue to work on strength and agility, and, anecdotally, I grew another inch my senior year in high school, so that’s possible too. I agree with you that Blake’s competition this winter may not be much to look at. Fresh would know better than me though about Elijah’s high school competition.

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I don’t disagree with any of that, I just disagree that Uva has enough resources to continue to scout their games just so we will know more about them when they arrive.

There just isn’t enough upside to devote those resources, which are limited, for something like that, which won’t answer the questions that will be answered in the first week of practice, even with Uva’s relatively big bball budget, imo.