UVA Basketball 2022-2023 Post Mortem Thread/Transfer out thread

I’m more interested to add all 4 top Acc teams in the tourney… would you rather have Virginia season or any of Duke’s, Pitt’s or a Miami season assuming they lose also in the 32. Duke and Pitt were literally one possession away from a share of the Acc crown so all 4 were equally relevant in the Acc all year.

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Eh, you’d want to follow that pattern, though, right?

In January, we shot below 30% once in eight games and we attempted a zillion 3s. In Feb and March, we shot above 30% just 4 times in 13 games while steadily attempting fewer 3s.

If they aren’t going to make them, I’d want the team to attempt a lot less 3s.

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Not too much of a difference when we are talking about losing in the first week. Pitt looks better because they beat Iowa State bad, but are many people going to remember that win, especially when they were thoroughly beat by X? Granted the way we lost to Furman WAS particularly embarrassing.

I guess I would take Pitt’s season, especially if I were a fan of Pitt. I mean they weren’t really expecting to do anything this year.

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If Miami loses, then I wouldn’t trade UVA’s season with anyone’s. With Pitt, losing in the 2nd round is better, but not enough of a difference to give up the regular season ACC co-title. With Duke, it’d just be trading off regular season vs tournament win + 2nd round. Meh. Same with Miami, I mean, I guess arguably I’m being stubborn, but I just don’t put a lot of weight on getting knocked out in the round of 32 instead of the round of 64.

But if Miami wins, obviously I’d want their season. S16 AND regular co-champs? No one cares they lost earlier in the ACC tournament.

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I’d take Miami’s season right now. Regular season championship, win in the first round of the NCAAs. That’s all I really wanted.

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Can I just say it’s freaking weird that Miami is chock full of high level talent, just an insane amount - then they have a regular season on par with Virginia and is basically everyone’s darling.

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Well… they’re winning in the post season. That tends to make the national audience like them.

Also, guard talent is what wins in March. Anyone familiar with college ball would note their guards are great. That’s the type of team you gamble on to make runs in the tournament.

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Definitely not Duke. If we were preseason #7 and got physically dominated in the 2nd round, we would not be happy.

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I made a post earlier (pre-ACCt) that the co-regular season wasn’t going to do it for me. Mostly because it will be used as a tool to say how dominant we’ve been.

But the truth is we had an exceptionally easy league schedule with a very down ACC. I’m happier we took care of business than the flip side but would have felt more accomplishment winning the ACCT against a surging Duke.

Yeah, if they win tonight Miami has a nice trend going. E8, at least S16 this year, good coach and a doner willing to fork over lots of $$ in the NIL era. If the question is would I prefer that outlook going forward… Yep.

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I’m not sure if this is the contrarian view, and it shouldn’t be, IMO, but I think that the past two seasons have been two of the best coaching jobs Tony Bennett has done since he’s been at Virginia. First, when you look at last year’s roster. It’s lack of experience in his systems and the lack of playable depth, it’s remarkable that UVa won 21 games. Furthermore, going into this season, if you had told me that Virginia would be ranked in, or near, the Top 10 most of the season, that it would beat Baylor and Michigan in Ann Arbor, take two of three from Carolina, finish tied for first in the ACC, and play Duke for the conference championship, I would have told you that, however nice that might be, you’re delusional. Virginia overachieved this season, IMO.
Additionally, it is worth remembering that all the early exits from the NCAA tournament were accompanied with extraordinary circumstances. In nearly every instance, there had been something disruptive to the roster going into the tournament. In 2012, the team was a walking M.A.S.H. unit. Harris was starting with a cast on his left wrist for Pete’s sake. In 2015, the team was never the same after Anderson’s appendectomy. In 2017, as if it weren’t enough to have dismissed Austin Nichols after the first game, Isaiah Wilkins only played five minutes in the first NCAAT game, and not at all in the loss to Florida. And, in 2021, the covid shutdown cannot be dismissed. The team wasn’t ready to play Ohio through no fault of the staff. This year, first Beekman’s hamstring, and then Vander Plas’ back and hand, really poured sand into the gears of a well-oiled machine. On the other hand, when Virginia has been healthy entering the NCAAT, there have been appearances in the Sweet 16, Elite 8, and a National Championship. All that said, I think the early departures following the championship, and the covid related recruiting issues really disrupted Coach Bennett’s approach to roster management. The new transfer portal rules have done likewise. It also seems to me that Virginia is moving beyond that now. I hope the Coach Bennett and his staff continue to do exactly as they have (and that means making the tweaks they deem necessary as conditions dictate). As someone who has followed Virginia basketball for over a half century, I think I am safe in saying that the last decade is the best it has ever been. A lot of the above comments are indicative of just how spoiled Virginia fans have become. As I was once advised, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!” Just avoid the injuries.

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My contrarian view is it are posts that these that flame up the board more than “negative” and “spoiled” posts.

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Yeah, I don’t think you are wrong about what CTB has pulled together the last two years. I might argue that pulling together a top 16 year after the championship with that team that had an extraordinarily tough time scoring is up there too (obviously not seeing what they could do in the tournament kind of puts an asterisk on it).

Problem is the talent gap is really growing between our program and the truly elite programs. Hopefully the 22 and 23 classes will help close the gap. Otherwise you end up having to coach up “over achieving” teams year after year.

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Tony needs to go spend a day with Izzo and pick his brain on how he gets his team to win so much in March. He only has 1 natty I know, but he just wins so consistently in the tournament. I really wonder how he does it so consistently.

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We haven’t won a tournament game in the last 4 years. I do hope there is a fix coming LOL. These aren’t the good ole days: we are 4 years removed from the good ole days but Im not negative/Im confident we can get back there and the 2022/23 classes are the beginning of that (hopefully anchored by Reece and Kadin)

Roster management is on staff. We had a 4 man that already sacrifices our identity for and we brought in another 4 man who wasn’t that great of a shooter and just as weak a helpside defender and then played both of them together as the expense of the confidence of our high ceiling rim protector who we were playing well with and our top 100 recruit who could have played this year to develop for the future (and who probably would not have made the decision with his family to redshirt after playing 0 minutes in the first game).

It’s not about accumulating high ranked kids, its about accumulating kids who 1) fit the identity of playstyle the staff are geared towards and 2) compliment each other, not just the playstyle.

Every program has excuses and short luck and injuries if you do a deep dive. I see tweets on twitter saying “3 years loss to double digit seeds but national title 2019. Definitely worth”: What Im wondering if why there is this exchange in the first place? T

Tennessee lost their starting pg, most important position, and beat Duke to make the sweet 16. BVP went down and sure we lost some versatility but it also allowed Dunn and Kadin to get minutes they usually wouldn’t get and it lead to us looking the best we have in ages. Id argue we are a better team with BVP but BVP as the 4th big in the rotation who can offer us that rinkle. However that wasn’t a reality as our only options were start Jayden BVP together, which was awful, or have no BVP and Kadin/Dunn get the minutes which lead to our best defense in a hot minute.

Again saying this doesn’t mean I hate Tony; I love Tony at UVA and Im sure all this outward facing social media saving face from fans on twitter isn’t how staff feel; I assure you tony and staff are just as frustrated with this trend and hopefully gives them a hunger to reapproach how they have done things and get back to 2014-2019 UVA.

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Great info and callout. We need to build on the ‘22 momentum of recruiting guys who fit how we want to play. The 2022 class is a great step in that direction, and Blake B also looks like a gem. We need to keep those guys, develop them, and keep adding parts around them. Some of the adds might be top 50 guys, but we also should have others to fit roles we need. In these roles, we need shooters and a couple of bouncy and feisty bigs in particular.

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Izzo with 8 finals 4s in a 24 year span damn.

Jay Wright/john beilein success is where I think Tony can get to. Especially with other teams going so heavy on the portal/ so many more high school kids to recruit and diamonds in the rough not even being scouted anymore (COUGHSHAEDONSIMPSONCOUGH)/ and in turn building those relationships means more portal targets as well.

Just get back to athletic 4s and point guards who can shoot 3s and don’t have that 2017-2021 recruiting stretch.

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It has been [0] days since we were accused of being spoiled for talking hoops.

(Sorry, OSHA regulations stipulate that I post this)

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What’s crazy about Jay Wright is he was in a very similar situation to what TB is in right now back in the early 2010’s. Coming off Nova’s F4 run in 2009 they went six years without making it past the first weekend, which included a year in the middle where they went 13-19. Everyone was saying that Wright was an underachiever in March when they were a 1 seed in 2016.

Two national titles in a three year span later and now he’s considered one of the greatest NCAAT coaches ever, partially because Wright made a key adjustment to significantly raise the amount of 3pt shots his teams took within their continuity 4 out offense. I think TB can have a very similar trajectory, but he’s gotta make some tweaks like Wright did in order to do so.

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Since 2016, Michigan State is 9-6 in the NCAA Tournament, with two first-round exits (one of them in Dayton) to go along with a Final Four and, now, a Sweet Sixteen.

UVa is 10-5 with three first-round exits to go along with a national title and an Elite Eight.

Looks like they could give each other advice on winning in the last eight years.

(If you go back to the two years they beat us, they’re 16-8, two F4s, E8, S16, two first-round losses. We’re 13-7, natty, E8, S16, and three first-round losses.)

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