Aleppo has a national team? Now thats amazing
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My view is we missed the tourney last year because we weren’t a tourney caliber team. I think the schedule was an overrated factor in us missing the tourney. We were more than one game or one bad loss away, it turns out.
My view is the schedule this year may be more of a factor, but tbh, my bigger worry is that early tough games (and likely losses) force Tony to go into his core 6 / B-M shell. And (1) that’s not what I would enjoy seeing most, and (2) I don’t think that’s best for our longer term upside.
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Agree Haney. Beating (not losing to) Navy and JMU dont get us in
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Nice to see Taine continuing to improve his play over the course of the tournament. Was NZ’s leading scorer and shot 6/11, including 3-8 from three.
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Love seeing him get so many shots up and getting big minutes even if it is against Syria
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I both agree with you that the reason we missed out last year is because we weren’t very good and still am OK with this year’s schedule, haha.
The committee has been pretty damn forgiving if you schedule hard and lose against good teams in the non-con. They like that a lot more than beating up nobodies. If we’re actually a better team, it should be reflected over the course of the season, and however we do in those Q1 games should probably be alright.
I get your concern about Tony getting conservative though. It’s happened before. But maybe with a group that has played more together on the court than the last two iterations of this team, he’ll be a little more flexible and patient. Plus, in the past when he had extremely high-level young talent, he played them, so seems safe to assume he could again. We shall see!
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I think the mediocre season has a lot of of us underestimating the importance of returning everyone. At least three starters haven’t hit their ceilings yet, and should be reasonably expected to improve. And in a such a team oriented defensive scheme, having a year of experience as a group is absolutely huge. Add in a top 15 class, a good transfer, and Taine possibly becoming game ready, and you have the recipe for a very nice year. I think those things easily give us 5 or 6 more wins this year.
Looking at it differently, if all of the above were true about VT’s team, I would be very worried about them this season.
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Igor was also Poland’s leading scorer in that game … played smoothly
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Which third starter hadn’t hit their ceiling? I assume you mean Armaan?
You a perpetuating a lie by saying this
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The worst thing on a madness resume has consistently been a weak non conf schedule … and the very worst thing is to lose to a weak non conf opponent. We did both last year.
Simply gotta consistently schedule at least 4-5 upper tier Power 6 teams every year now to be considered a top 4 seed.
Also it’s different now than 2019 and before. The ACC has become so weak that all those ACC games don’t help the RPI/NET nearly as much as before. And going from 16 to 18 and now to 20 ACC games hurts even more.
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lol yes. And while not necessarily the jump we hope to see with Reese or Kadin, I do think he has some room for growth left in his game.
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I don’t disagree, I have just been saying I hope Jayden and Armaan taking defensive steps forward.
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He mostly maxed out the last 2 games of the year - I can’t imagine him playing much better than that … and if he plays that way …I think we’ll all applaud it.
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The main way for those 2 to improve defensively is to play more limited minutes and play against similar height players.
That means Armaan should only play at the 2 and Jayden needs to have limited minutes a the 4. At least against regular sized 4’s … he’s fine against teams like last year’s Miami or Syracuse.
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I would be okay if we swapped one of the brutal non con games (looking at you Houston) for another P5 team that’s more middle class. But it’s really picking nits
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If you don’t play a tough OOC you basically sacrifice your chance at a top 4 seed. That is unless the ACC is significantly better this year than it’s been the last 2-3 years.
Also don’t think this is as bad as people are making it out to be. Yea Houston will be tough. But Baylor is beatable. And if we get Illinois they will be adjusting to life post-Cofi and breaking in a new PG. Michigan isn’t anything special.
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When did we schedule houston?
Agree. I might be overrating Michigan. Another year of hoping an Ivy League PG can make the leap. But I think Howard’s kid is legit
@WFS_HOO i think it was before last season
I don’t know how we stop Dickinson
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