Givony casually floated on the Lowe Post the idea that Dunn could be the backup center for the Suns next season since they are pretty limited in their ability to add players to fill that hole, and Dunn’s offensive role right now is probably limited to being in the dunker spot.
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Dunn/Suns posting this
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8vi1mJJsun/?igsh=bG0xb3diMXhrbnJm
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Say what you want but being dead last in pace every single year when there are 360 teams and only about 75 major teams is pathetic
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I do think being DFL in pace is sort of symptomatic of the issues since the natty.
(Most of) Our fans look at our performance up to and including the natty and say “pace is unrelated to offensive efficiency so it’s incorrect to focus on that.”
I look at our mediocre (at best) offense and continued DFL in pace since the natty and say “Tony is more loyal to his style of play than to trying to have a better offense.” And then I say things like “Tony doesn’t care about offense” and folks think that’s dumb or crazy because they don’t realize it’s actually the most optimistic take on what could get us out of our offensive tailspin. All that has to happen here is our HOF coach needs to start caring about offense again and we could have good offense.
But as long as we prioritize things like pace of play over things like “gee, maybe the most athletically talented roster I’ve ever had might benefit from playing a style that makes me feel icky” then our offense is going to be icky.
TL;DR - Tony is getting old just like the rest of us but he (and his enablers) needs to stop convincing himself that getting old is some sort of virtue.
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More specific to this thread, Tony could have done any of the following:
- encourage RD to shoot whenever he was open (as in, shoot when open or you’re on the bench)
- put RD in positions to take advantage of his athleticism and what he could do well on offense (and to be fair, we did some of that stuff in the middle third of the season and then we stopped)
- failing all that, we coulda just not ran stuff where he wasn’t constantly getting the ball on the perimeter where he was just a ball stopper
But that’s exactly what Tony did. He created a rut, he fell into the rut, and then he just took a nap in that rut while every college hoops fan pointed and laughed. Like, I understand why people get frustrated with us pointers/laughers. I honestly do … that’s enough for now…
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https://x.com/brendan_mau/status/1806407338225545521?s=46&t=wAzMZR-0PRGT1LpN6U5x0g
Coach O!
Also…did not realize OG was such a bad FT shooter in college too!
https://x.com/easysunnysniper/status/1805654633475719461?s=46&t=wAzMZR-0PRGT1LpN6U5x0g
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Twitter version if you are not on the Gram…
https://x.com/Suns/status/1806517083297198344?t=iDPUmbnPjDXQwOA7F2Quww&s=19
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That’s so awesome.
Genuinely made my eyes water a little.
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He’s such a good dude. I really hope it works out well for him.
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Guess I can post this now that the season has been over for 4 months. HGN - please delete this post if it should still be embargoed.
My wife and I were fortunate to attend a practice in early October 2023 (the staff forbids visitors to post about anything on social media or message boards).
At the end of practice Ryan Dunn was the first player to walk around to each person watching and introduce himself, thank them, and even take a few pictures. The rest of the team then followed behind RD in a line. I do not believe this was prodded by the coaches. Ryan appeared to just do this on his own.
He is an impressive young man, and his parents obviously did a fantastic job raising him. Coach O’s comment about RD being their best recruiter doesn’t surprise me at all. He is very personable and easy to talk with.
Have attached the picture from that day. As a point of reference I am 6’0" without shoes and RD makes me look like a small child : )
Very happy for him and believe he will be a monster defensively by mid-season and will surprise people with his shooting if he can stay confident / cocky.
Go Hoos.
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Great stuff, love to hear of these types of interactions, thanks for sharing.
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Risking your future practice access to tell the LRA world what an awesome guy Ryan Dunn is…love it.
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Did the staff ever try to get RD to reclass and redshirt?
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There was a little talk about it after he committed. But I think he felt like he was better off getting game reps. With him being a late bloomer all the covid time missed, he hadn’t really played much high level basketball.
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2025 Sam V mock
31 - Xaivian Lee 
Kon K at 16 (Sam has been on him for a while)
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is there some uva relevance to Xaivian Lee that i’m forgetting? just looking at his princeton stats i see a 6’3’’ guard who shot below 34% from deep
Same school as RD
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Yeah, sorry. Mostly of interest to me from watching RD’s prep year (at Perkiomen). But I think it’s interesting that he’s a draft prospect from an Ivy and stayed at school, rather than transferring up.
His % isn’t eye catching but I think he’s a good volume scorer. He went through the workout circuit this year, so maybe Sam heard good things.
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