âI need people who like artâ
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Excess satisfaction and complacency. He proved his system could work and so what was left to achieve? and then there was the pandemic.
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I legitimately love that our first Coach Odom thread has already devolved into arguing about Kihei only 24 hours after the hire. Itâs just⌠chefâs kiss.
Never change!
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Happy to contribute my part.
Not sure I agree. Just from a rankings standpoint I thought we were set 2019-20 when Beekman, Morsell, Shedrick & JAR were all 4 stars, and we got Hauser & Murphy as transfers.
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Why am I seeing hidden replies again? I thought the Sanchez family member that guaranteed heâd already been hired would leave once he didnât get hired, but no. Still here. Still trolling. (I only replied to you because you quoted them, so I see who you quoted, but the content of the quote is blank).
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Purely from an incoming class ranking perspective, 2019-2022 was by far the best recruiting stretch of the CTB era, although 2016 was the best class largely because of its size.
Lukewarm take: Tony started to burn out pretty quickly after the championship, probably somewhere during the 2020-2021 season. He started cutting corners for one last run; stopped identifying undervalued talent annually (he skipped Peach Jam one year even). That led to a lot of mediocrity. 2019-2020 feels like the last real Bennett-era team to me that really reflected Tonyâs personality and preferences.
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Yes. He also refused to adapt, which has been stated ad naseum. Other greats did. He did not make any meaningful changes to the offensive system as the game changed. Itâs too bad, but itâs history. Still an all time great!
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Itâs fun when youâre reading only half the conversation but that half makes it clear you were right to mute the other half 
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@SaberMetrics coming on strong on his cake day!! I agree with you, can quibble on the exact time TBâs interest started to fade but thatâs pretty close. Was a drastic difference the last several years, especially with the offseason stuff. And it stated before NIL/portal kicked in too.
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I remember someone saying he fell in love with zoom recruiting during the pandemic and much preferred it even after travel and crowd restrictions were lifted.
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Not true. The 2022 recruiting class was outstanding (and the lowest ranked member of that group was a 1st round draft pick after his 2nd year). Unfortunately, only a single player remained in the program by the fall of 2024. Additionally, there was a parade of highly ranked players who came through the program only to leave prematurely. If I am not mistaken, there are at least four UVa players (who arrived after the title) who are on NBA rosters. IMO, that would suggest that the issue wasnât recruiting players. Virginiaâs problem wasnât recruiting, and it wasnât the schemes. It was continuity.
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Iâd still argue recruiting fell off. Internet high school recruiting rankings are borderline meaningless. My impression is that CTB used to be in the group of coaches (Matt Painter, Shaka, Beilein, etc.) who could find âdiamonds in the roughâ because they trusted their eye for talent and intuition over computer rankings. It seems like they got a little complacent in that area 3-5 years ago, so based solely off 247/Rivals rankings, I supposed you could argue recruiting remained as it was before, but we could all see there was a difference in talent, fit, mindset, etc.
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For me, that year was the beginning of Double Down Tony. Adjust schemes and philosophy to account for a team heavy on athleticism and disruption, but weak on offense? Nope, double down on defense.
Double down on redshirting. Double down on experience (even if the experience was bad). There wasnât a problem that Tony didnât think he could solve by doubling down. Except for recruiting, where he stopped showing up.
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Coach Bennett took chances on recruits from the day he arrived. There is a whole list of players who arrived, and either couldnât find playing time or lost it, and then transferred. Of the original âSix Shootersâ, only Harris and Mitchell stayed four years. Baron, Johnson, Harrell, and Regan left. In subsequent years, Paul Jesperson, Taylor Barnette, B. J. Stith, Teven Jones, Marial Shayok, Jarred Reuter, Marco Anthony, and Francesco Badocchi all left prematurely. The difference between the attrition before NCAA title, and after, was that those leaving before 2019 were doing so from the end of the bench. I imagine that they didnât see the prospect of playing time in their futures. After 2019, many of the players who left were rotation players upon whom more was being expected. Both continuity and development were greatly reduced.
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Iâm sorry but that 22 class does not sniff the 16 class imo. Especially in hindsight. Also, continuity does not exist in a vacuum. MSU, has 4/5 players starting that they recruited from HS. Purdue has their entire starting 5 home grown. It could be done, he just got grossed out and checked out from doing it I guess for some reason.
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And thatâs nonsense! Right now, the biggest difference between the 2016 class and the 2022 class is that those in the 2016 class stayed in the program. None of the 2022 may actually finish their collegiate careers at UVa with the notable exception of Dunn⌠Weâll never know what they might have achieved.
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Iâve said this beforeâŚI think Bennett gotâŚI donât want to say lazy exactly. But things got way easier after the national title, guys they wouldnât have gotten before fell in their lapsâŚso they understandably grabbed them. They didnât need to hunt the same way, basically. Evaluation became babysitting instead of hunting for gems, sometimes anyway.
HS recruiting has changed a lot in the last 10 years too though lol There are no secrets anymoreâŚharder to do some of the tricks TB and friends used to pull. They were pretty sneaky about things, canât get away with anymore.
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Iâll still disagree despite the arbitrary 2019-22 window. From 2010-2016 his average class was ranked around #31 by 247 composite, with a top class of #7 in the country. From 2017 on, it was ranked an average of #45, with a top class of #14 (two transferred out, one who never played) Even without the benefit of knowing the future, recruiting was way better on average through 2016.
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I reference what Jay Wright said about the recruiting dynamic after you elevate the program often: Inside Villanova's epic five-year run - ESPN
Wright had early success at Villanova by getting tough-minded, hard-nosed kids who were mostly local products from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the D.C.-Maryland-Virginia region and the surrounding areas. More often than not, those players werenât ranked in most recruiting services.
But once the Wildcats had success on a national scale, the expectations grew.
âI got sloppy,â Wright said. "After we went to the Final Four, it was easy to get guys. So rather than sit down with them and explain, âLook, I know you want to come, but this is what we do,â I said, âAll right, good, heâs a great player? All right, good.â
âAnd then they got here, we start talking about it and theyâre like, âWhoa, no one told me about that.â And they were right. We didnât explain to them what this was. Some of them, when they got here, they got it. Some of them were like, âWait, thatâs not what I signed up for.ââ
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