Braxton was pre portal era, so iām not counting him. We had massive success with transfers before the sit out was eliminated, and Iām counting TM3 in that bucket, because he didnāt know he wouldnāt have to sit when he made his decision.
Of the no-sit transfers, AF was probably our best, and Iād call him a pretty average ACC-level starter (I donāt think thatās a bad thing when we clearly had the need, but itās also not Gill, Key, TM3, Hauser either). Jayden started on a 1st place team, so your point is taken, but he also started on a team that missed the tournament. He was a flawed piece on a flawed team, even if he was a solid contributor and a guy I liked to root for.
Iād summarize my view this way: in the no-sit era, we are getting replacement players, guys who fill roster spots vacated by transfers out or cover up recruiting misses. We are not getting guys who complete an otherwise incomplete puzzle. Part of that is the pieces we are picking up, and part of that is the other pieces we are trying to fit the new pieces in with.
We really have to separate the two transfer eras. The 1st 3 guys you mentioned had far more success than the last 3, but none of it was immediate. They all sat a year.
āHey Cade Tyson/Ezra Ausar. Leave your situations where you are starters getting 25 minutes + a game to come redshirt here at UVA. Gill and Hauser are in the NBA and our team makes the Tourney more often than notāā¦
Maybe a more palatable pitch if ended with āand we also win a game in the tourney sometimes. Also hereās $150,000ā
edit: I do think we could get away with redshirting and keeping kids patient if they are in bench roles with NIL. We need a redshirt NIL fund.
LOL iām not proposing we redshirt transfers. Iām saying shit done changed. Also, maybe itās not worth the time to compile a fantasy list of transfers since youāre right, those guys aināt coming. most likely.
The no sit rule and NIL have change the recruiting and transfer games.
Whereas we struggled for a few years with high school recruiting and made up for it with excellent transfers pre-portal era, that recipe has completely flipped over the last few years. Weāve seen a noticeable uptick in high school recruiting rankings and our transfers are no where near the impact we used to get.
My hypothesis is that bag droppers and handlers seeking the bag drop for high school kids arenāt as prevalent - the bags (now above board NIL) are focused on the transfer market. On the flip side, transfers used to not be impacted by the noise as much and prioritized development and winning. Now transfers are getting giant NIL deals.
So we now have less competition for high school recruits and more competition for transfers. I say double down on high school recruiting and only take transfers where absolutely necessary for depth.
Iām not sure any of this can be attributed to the change in rules. First, most of the pre-2019 transfers were not required to contribute immediately. At least, not as starters. They had time to learn the schemes and become part of the team. And, even if Trey Murphy III started immediately, initially it was thought he would sit a year. The transfers which the staff have added since then have been asked to contribute, if not start, in their first year, and itās worth noting the development of Franklin and Gardner in their second seasons on the team. I firmly believe it was their growth in the system which took UVa from an NIT team to a solid seed in the NCAAT.
Virginiaās struggles, IMO, are connected to the recruiting mistakes/limitations in 2020 and 2021, and to a lesser extent, those of 2019. Essentially, Virginia now has just one upperclassman with significant playing experience. Jabri Abdur-Rahim was a recruiting miss. I think everyone had high expectations of him. Carson McCorkle was more of a gamble, but heās gone, too. Due to the recruiting restrictions of 2020, both of Virginiaās recruits that year were foreigners. If I am not mistaken, there were no live evaluations by the staff of them. Milicic was a miss. Murray may yet contribute. On the upside, the recruiting classes of 2022, 2023, and, hopefully, 2024 appear to be much stronger, but it is going to take time for them to gain the experience necessary to execute Coach Bennettās schemes effectively. Finally, even if Groves and Minor arenāt performing like Gill or Key, their level of play isnāt that much different than that of Nigel Johnson, and Rohde may yet develop beyond the status of a journeyman.
I think that there is little doubt that the new rules will have an impact on college recruiting, but I am unsure that it has had anything but a positive impact at Virginia. While the staff has managed to plug holes with those transfers, the long term success of UVa still rests with high school recruiting and player development. At least, in my opinion it does.
Timing may amplify it, but the rules are definitely having an impact on the quality of transfers we are getting. Gill, Hauser, and Nichols were all considered top 1-5 or so transfers in their transfer years. We arenāt sniffing that type of quality anymore.
Regardless of when they contribute, I donāt think its debatable that the pre-portal batch of Gill, Nichols, Hauser, Murphy, Key, etc. are higher quality/profile players than what weāve gotten since the NIL/no sit out rule has changed the game in the portal.
Agree that recruiting misses have been what put us in the post-championship dipā¦but it wasnāt 2 years, it was every recruiting class from 2017-2021 effectively missing for a myriad of reasons (bag dropping, Nazis, Covid, bad evals, flyers on foreign prospects, etc.). This year was supposed to be the year where we stacked good recruiting classes on top of each other with upperclassmen leadershipā¦but the portal eviscerated our front court and we couldnāt get near-comparable portal talent in return.
It is worth noting that each of the players you mentioned was evaluated and heavily recruited by Virginia coming out of high school. Others who the staff recruited, and subsequently transferred from their original school are Reid, Quinerly, and Coleman. Iām pretty sure Virginia had no interest in Reid or Quinerly once they entered the portal. Iām not sure about Coleman. I would be very interested to see a list of players with whom UVa was heavily involved when they were in high school, and who subsequently entered the transfer portal. Off the top of my head, it seems most of the significant recruiting misses are either at their original choice, or they have moved on to the NBA. When the staff has been plugging holes in the recent seasons, it hasnāt necessarily looked at former prospects. At least, none that I know. I donāt believe the recent transfers have been as thoroughly evaluated. That is one of the bigger differences from the before championship and after championship transfers.
With closed conference systems once non-conference play stopsā¦ this just perpetuates a false narrative if any team regresses. Top player on every team gets hurt? No problemā¦ still the best teams in the country.
In all fairness though, the Torvik rankings with priors removed makes the Big12 look a bit better. That said, it would be nice to see some changes to conference-play scheduling so we could see some OOC games after teams have had some more reps together instead of treating it like a warmup for conference play like it is now.
Up until the mid-90s, Virginia played non-conference games well after ACC competition had begun. The likes of Arkansas, Missouri, Louisville, Houston, UNLV, Marquette, and Connecticut were scheduled during the 2nd semester, and, often, as late as February. In 1981, Virginia beat Ohio State on Super Bowl Sunday. What had become the annual neutral site game with Virginia Tech was played as late as the third week in February. All that had pretty much changed after 2000, and I have no idea why. Of course, back when Holland was coaching, the season didnāt begin until Thanksgiving weekend when the United Virginia Bank Classic was played on Friday & Saturday nights.
Arizona thumping Colorado so far (on ESPN). I wanted to see KJ Simpson in action for Colorado since heās having an absurdly good season so far. Also there was just a Frank Caliendo segment?
