I donāt totally followā¦is this about how he builds rosters or something else?
Any Hoofan who has done or is doing the pessimism gymnastics required to not be excited about Odom with Aldrich as associate head coachā¦ is probably just never going to be happy.
I look forward to the program proving their pessimism to be misplaced and ill conceived.
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No coach from a lower level is successful at a HM/BT program, until he is promoted to a HM/BT program.
One year from today, weāll have a handle on whether he can make ground with 4 star recruits and quality transfers and show that he can be a winning ACC coach. Letās not suck all the oxygen up fretting and inventing reasons to be miserable.
Besides, worrying about the future is my job and I do it better than anyone, so leave it to me, you bunch of effing amateurs!!
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Yeah but Iām bored. HGN hasnāt given us any news in hours, what am I supposed to do?? Watch college basketball?? Donāt be ridiculous. Iāll be here fretting.
Too many positive announcements yesterday, itās seratonin hangover day today.
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What does that mean?
Pessismism gymnastics part
I bleed Orange & Blue, but man, some of you make me want drop out of the sports fandom side.
The nitpicking of their experience at a high level makes no sense to me, between all of the coaches, theyāve certainly been around the block a few times and are not new to the scene. Odom and Aldrich are two extremely intelligent men who understand the game of basketball on a profound level, and who each have vast ties in the State of Virginia (our dream, no?).
Such men will not fail to understand the nuances of running a Power 5 team for long, and Iām sure Bennett and others who have experience will lend some form of a mentorship-esque hand; they are not doing this alone. Theyāre extremely motivated and they have resources.
There are plenty of coaches who have spent years running a power 5 program and have done poorly at it, while others immediately succeed at a high level due to innate ability. Thatās what you hire: raw talent that will quickly refine.
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Dont drop out. I am only saying it seems for me like Young and or Forbes type thing. Optically
yeahā¦could be wrong but I think heād bump his head against the institutional issues at UVA more than Odom. If he gets a big job, fully expect him to follow his dadās plan. Lots of senior transfers. Also think just his connections and recruiting niches, there are guys heād get elsewhere that may not get in the door at UVA.
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Iād put it this way: The Pitinos are very much āwin at any cost, winning is the only thing that mattersā kind of coaches, and UVa is not that kind of school.
Iām not passing judgment on either approach. Just saying I donāt think they match.
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Bending over backwards to find specific little things to be negative about = pessimism gymnastics
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Thereās overlap there! 
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In all seriousness though, at least explain your position because so far youāve said weāre closer to a mid major and are āgoing to suck under Odom.ā Your only evidence so far is the 3 games you supposedly watched where you claim the offense looked disorganized. Iām not discounting your doom and gloom, but would love to hear some actual reasoning for it.
Iām a noted optimist but Iāve yet to hear a single argument against Odom that is anything more than pessimism gymnastics (shoutout @kendall) or would come with hiring any mid major coach.
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To counterbalance some of the pessimism, I am very excited about Odom and Aldrich. Iām also very excited to see how the remainder of the staff shapes up. Should be a fun few weeks.
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Crazy that weāre having to counterbalance pessimism lol. Itās been a really exciting last 72 hours
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Also, look how many mid majors made the sweet 16: 0. People are rating Odomās VCU job based on the performance of pre transfer portal, pre NIL VCU. I donāt think thatās fair. Itās a much more difficult environment for these mid major teams these days. And a guy who took two of them to the tournament is a good coach.
Also, Aldrich has not coached at the HM level. But also, which of our long tenured assistants under CTB had done so? J Willy strikes me as a great guy who bleeds orange and blue, but how many of those DMV 5* did we land? How good were our bigs the last 5 years? Remember Ron Sanchez? He never took a single team to the NIT(!!) the NIT! Aldrich has taken a poverty program to the madness twice.
Aldrich and Odom are a little older but they took longer to get into coaching. I think they are still āyoungā in their basketball careers. Itās not like they have these deeply entrenched preferences from spending 15 years at one mid major or whatever.
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I think Odom is a good pick and Aldrich is interesting, too, but Iām not super optimistic about the future of the program. Something about thinking/reading about the portal has made me more pessimistic. I just dontā see that being a venue where we will outperform.
Tony came into what turned out to be a pretty good situation. He found a counter-cyclical strategy that worked against K and Roy. And he found a nice seam of under-valued HS players and kept them around and developed them.
I think Odom has a tougher job. Not sure why Iām more pessimistic now ā part of it is my natural contrarianism (I liked Odom when folks groaned; Iām a little more reserved when I see folks getting excited). Part of it is just seeing the SEC teams success in the tourney. And part of it is reading too many portal posts. I donāt see that being an arena where our program succeeds. I think Odom has to find the right narrow path between Shaka/Painter/Shrews (whoās doing it poorly) and the higher level portal dominant strategy. And then execute on that narrow path.
TLDR - we shall seeā¦
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I think a lot of this is fair, but āTony came into a good situationā isnāt something I can really agree with. The ACC was 10x as good as it is now, aka harder to win, and āfinding a strategy that works against K and Royā is something that basically nobody else in the country could do. Tony made it a great situation, but he came into a program in way worse shape than it is right now
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Tony came into the premier hoops conference. What is it now?
Maybe.
Just sharing what I think is all and never accused of being pessamistic but thats ok
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