Hard to argue with this!
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None of this is lost on anyone in this thread. We are very well aware of that and that high expectations created by the same coach can set them up for failure later.
Again, for the trillionth time it’s not all or nothing LOL. Its like the “Love it or leave it” mentality of older generations.
Its like saying “One day your loved ones will die so you should never get into arguments with them or be angry at them”
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Talking about hoops makes me happy. And for me, part of talking about hoops is discussing the strengths and weaknesses of your long time coach, and likely long time future coach.
All of these threads inevitably turn into a referendum on criticism … Just inevitable I guess…
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Serious question: Tony has been viciously effective and successful at implementing his formula for success. No one in the history of the program has been better, and if he never does anything else of consequence, we all should be eternally grateful for the unprecedented joy he’s brought us all. But what has Tony improved on? Has he evolved as a coach/program architect? In his year end review(s), has Tony told Tony what to work on to improve?
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And this is why Nova and Buckhead suck.
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I’m just happy NYC burgers are getting some love here and I’m avoiding neighborhood discussions, because when you live in the UES, you learn not to cast stones. 
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Get better at not letting good players leave early and messing up our roster construction?
My two cents - this thread was/is interesting for a lot of reasons. The first being that this is what the LRA Forum is for - to debate and challenge and to become more informed. I am always impressed with the level of sophistication and basketball knowledge IQ of all of you guys. But is also a place to be entertained!! And this was entertaining for sure… I don’t think anyone here is advocating for any kind of action - its just a fun exercise to opine on. Its like picking out Elle Macpherson’s worst physical traits… As a reminder, this is Elle Macpherson:
Look at those bunions!!!
The point is not to generate discord, or create a movement, or hurt/harm anyone in the program. The point is to be entertained, disagree, challenge, become more educated, and hopefully laugh at some point.
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True. But the SI covers with her the two years prior were better.
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If Murphy is here, Franklin doesn’t come.
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Either way, Murphy would have given us more of what was needed than Franklin. But the ideal lineup would have been Reece, Franklin, Murphy, Gardner & Shedrick with Kihei as 6th man…but we know that wouldn’t have happened.
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Agreed…although if Murphy wasn’t eligible in 21, then his 30 minutes would’ve gone to…some combo of Morsell, Woldo and McKoy? Maybe Stattmann when he wasn’t out? Less likely, but still possibly JAR and McCorkle?
So maybe Morsell and/or McKoy stick around, Franklin doesn’t transfer in and…I can’t even hazard a guess on what the alternate reality would look like.
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I’ve seen people say this like it’s a fact but I haven’t seen any evidence this is true. They are very different players and the (public at least) order of events was Franklin committing before Murphy leaving.
Wooden was also a cheater. While we are discussing coaching weaknesses we can’t leave that aspect out and only look at his strengths. Fair is fair.
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Good point.
Here is an interesting stat as it relates to my premise that you have to protect your home state borders when it comes to recruiting;
Of the 4 Final Four teams this year, there are 5 players who are starters for their respective programs who come from Virginia. I only included starters - there are several others who contribute however. The starters are:
Villanova - Brandon Slater (9 ppg, 4 rebs)
Duke - Jeremy Roach (9ppg, 3 asst) and Mark Williams (DPOY - 11ppg, 8 rebs, 3 blocks)
UNC - Armando Bacot (17ppg, 13 rebs)
Kansas - David McCormack (10ppg, 7 rebs)
So 25% (5/20) of the Final Four starters are from our home state.
There is probably a better way of looking at this (cue that stat-heads who are better than me at this) but this is interesting to me.
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This is a point you hammer home, and I agree with. You got to build a hedge around your state. And it doesn’t mean you have to grab every 5 star, but you should have healthy representation of quality players.
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Three of those schools are part of the evil empire. Maybe I’m wrong but if a kid wants to be a part of that I don’t see any home school winning out, not just UVA. Losing a Va kid to any other out of state school is completely different than losing a kid to the dark side to me.
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It makes sense on so many levels to keep some of them in-state. Nobody gets all the 4 and 5 star kids in their home state. But i just think we should have a better track record than we do. Especially with a National Championship in our back pocket. TW @Merch has an interesting take on this as well. Lets hope we start getting some of these kids because it great for the school, the program, sales, ratings, culture, etc… Maybe with NIL we can take a step forward with them in the future.
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I’m going to be honest - I don’t care that much at all whether or not we land VA kids. I care whether we land high-level recruits. The issue with our recruiting between 2017 and 2021 wasn’t that we weren’t landing VA kids, it’s that we landed far too few of our top targets (and top ranked kids), we resorted to plan C way too often, and the few top choices we did get didn’t pan out (besides Reece and maybe Shedrick). If we landed a bunch more top 75 players over that span but they were all from Georgia, Florida, and California, that would have been totally fine.
The whole idea with the home state thing is that it makes it easier to get top talent because they give you a home state discount (as HGN likes to say). But VA players don’t give UVA that discount - they don’t especially want to come here over the NC schools or elsewhere. So it’ll take just as much effort to get them as kids from other states. Consequently, I don’t see a reason to prioritize them until that changes.
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