73Cav…your post is so spot on about MD… I saw some posts on their free board which is usually a cesspool in general that surprised me…every comment was positive when discussing the opportunity to have CTB recruit you…not a bad comment from the bunch…they were resigned to say “why wouldn’t you talk to CTB”…for MD that really shocked me…
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HGN…looks like your 75% call on getting one of the 3 T’s came in…put that at 100%…so thankful that I don’t get to roast you for that call and we did not strike out…this will feel good for a few weeks…or…days…at which point our obsession will be back on Keels…
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I’ll put it this way. In my admittedly uneducated opinion, if Taine Murray from New Zealand was instead Mike Smith from middle America, and he was ranked as a back end 5 star with the offer list to match, I would watch his highlight videos and say “yeah, that guy looks the part.”
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Unfortunately I have nothing to add on where he would be on 247. I’ve watched the highlights that posters have attached here and agree with Joe Boxley that he most resembles Joe Harris with respect to his shot and size. His shot fake, drive and dunk is very reminiscent of some Joe Harris NBA highlights on the same move. Really hard to tell regarding his overall athleticism, particularly quickness; though his ball handling, movement and elevation all seem around Harris level. My favorite comment has been from HGN regarding the impressiveness of his averaging 17 ppg on 44% from 3 (international distance I believe) in the same New Zealand pro league that Wilkins played in for 2 years. Murray is playing in the league again this winter, so I’m guessing we will see a lot more highlights soon to obsess over. I think we can safely say that he is far ahead skill and development-wise from Stattmann, Caffaro, Diakite, and Salt when they arrived on campus.
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He’s actually playing in the Australian basketball league, just for a team based in New Zealand (same team RJ Hampton played for last season). This league is a step up from the NZ-based league.
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Plus Keels and another guy 
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Even better that Murphy will be a junior and all of the other returners might not lose a year of eligibility this year.
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If we got even 1 of Keels or Kaufman, I feel like it would be almost a lock that somebody on that team transfers…
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Why do you think that? And who?
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Have we ever had a rotation that big? Just feels like someone would draw the short straw. And if I had to predict I’d say Stattmann. But honestly I thought he’d transfer this year so maybe I just don’t have a knack for predicting this stuff lol
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You might be right, but Tony is really good at that type o stuff. He’ll figure something out. Maybe he’ll get someone to redshirt. Idk
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Shayok, Thompson, and Reuter all moved on when they saw Guy, Jerome, and Hunter about to take most of their minutes. That was without a strong freshman class coming in as well.
I don’t think a transfer is always bad news for the program or the player.
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We could have 12 active guys this season and 8 maybe 9 spots in the rotation. Will be a shock if we don’t have a transfer after this year
Awesome news! Just curious and may have missed it in a previous discussion. Did Bennett ever see him play live at a camp or something? Thought that was a criteria for CTB for extending an offer.
There have been plentry of transfers from Coach Bennett’s recruiting classes after the first year. Remember that of that first class (Billy Baron, K.T. Harrell, Joe Harris, James Johnson, Akil Mitchell, and Will Regan–Jerry Ratcliff, I think dubbed them “The Six Shooters”), four left PDQ. In 2011 on the BleacherReport, Roger documented the departures of the first two to leave. Over on StreakingTheLawn in 2015, Paul Guttman had a pretty good follow-up on them. Others may recall that Taylor Barnette left after a season.
And, didn’t Darius Thompson transfer in and then out?
One of those writers called recruiting a “topsy-turvey world.” Sounds apt.
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So when did @HoozGotNext know that Murray had picked UVa (if you’re allowed to reveal that)? There were strong hints from various posters during the day so I assume HGN caught wind of it at some point before the announcement. If you don’t want to discuss that type of thing, I completely understand. I only ask because I find the behind the scenes parts of recruiting very interesting.
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Join VIP and ask in there… it’s not public then.
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No he didn’t. Not a criteria. Just a preference. His NZNBL games were all televised, as easy of a video eval as it gets. Whereas streams of HS/AAU games usually aren’t quite so high quality video or competition.
I didn’t for sure until he announced. Only people on the UVA who side who REALLY knew was the Wahoops gang since young Hawk did his edit. Everybody else was just reading signs or passing along stories from private message boards (we gotta clean that up guys. There’s no such thing in 2020) It was pretty well pieced together the odds were very high by Thursday night though. Enough that I stopped talking about it. Looked like it would be a fun surprise for a while there.
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Found this today. Really good. Loves his offense but feels it will be second year before it all comes together. Welcome Taine Murray - by StLouHoo - HOOS Place
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It took two years for Guy, Jerome and Hunter to hit their stride as well. So that’s a reasonable prediction for Murray.
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