Instead of % can you look at volume? We gave up a ton of 3s against furman for example when a pressure defense would have ran them off the line and forced a game predicated on athleticism instead of 3s.
Put differently most of those teams hit their season average but doing that was what they wanted to do - play their game based on 3s.
I think it makes sense to compare 2014-2019 and 2020-2023 for the reasons you note.
Also one aspect of Tony’s teams is roster construction and rotations. I think it means that losing a whatever rotation guy harms Virginia more than the average team.
Hot take: Tony is top tier in offensive and defensive systems. He’s top tier in player development. But I’m never sure his in-game adjustments are aggressive enough. People talk about Bill Self being very strong in-game. I don’t hear that about Tony.
If we want to point to a reason why UVA underperforms in the postseason relative to its regular season performance, we have to look at factors that are specific to the postseason. I can think of only three things (you’ll let me know what I missed):
In addition, there’s another hypothesis that blames separate individual misfortunes (while not using that as an excuse):
Of these, the only one that seems unconvincing to me is #2. We’re typically a top 20 team and a Quad 1 opportunity; teams are gunning for us all year long. The others are all possibilities.
I worry we play tight because of how structured we are on both offense and defense. It’s a tough balance between being organized and relaxed. Sometimes these free flowing teams are more relaxed because they are used to more chaos in their games.
Dude who beat is had missed 15 consecutive shots from outside the arc. And Vander Plas had hit some threes first time around in March.
And that was the biggest issue with the Vander Plas injury. Forced us back into structured blocker/mover instead of the more free-flowing and improvisational offensive sets we had been running with our small-ball lineups.
Of those, I went with #3 (intensity, confidence), but I strongly believe the answer is mostly LUCK. That’s not an excuse for mistakes we made, but as a former pro poker player, I understand well that you can have long strings of bad luck.
Injuries/illness just before the tournament and opponents miraculously finding their shot:
All supporting evidence for the old “Monkey Paw” curse theory. Purdue angered the paw by making it work so hard in the Elite 8.
Tony’s response: “ok, well, Wisconsin just offered $5 mil. See ya.”
And the bogus call on Shedrick with 12 seconds left or we are shooting 2 FTs with a 4 point lead and 8 seconds left.
And likely cover the 5.
Coaching should have been an option here
Lol that’s like saying someone lacks “leadership.” A word that includes a million thing that people use as a catch all when their argument isn’t refined.
What does “coaching” even mean in this context? If you want to make a claim, be specific.
I’ll answer it one way. For a college coach success in March I would opine is about 65% recruiting and playing your most talented players the most…. That’s what most everyone else does who succeeds each year in the madness.
Find dawgs and unleash them.
When looking at the last six complete seasons, it’s obvious CTB has a SERIOUS systemic fucking problem with winning in March. Yes, we got a title in 2019, but JFC look at the results below. If we lost to GW in 2019, would he even still be the coach? yes, he would because we are Virginia. But he would be on the hot seat.
In 2023: we lost to 13th seed Furman in the 1st round. Furman then got blown out in the 2nd round.
In 2022, we didn’t make the tournament.
In 2021, we lost to 13th seed Ohio in the 1st round. Ohio then got blown out in the 2nd round.
In 2019, we were down 6 pts at halftime to Gardner-Webb in the 1st round.
In 2018, we lost to a 16th seed by 20 pts in the 1st round. UMBC then lost in the 2nd round.
In 2017, we barely beat 12th seed UNCW, then lost by 26 pts in the 2nd round.
We should all beat this horse. I’m getting seriously sick of this shit. yay we got a regular season ACC title (A thing that really wasn’t even historically a “thing” until recently when we realized we can’t win real tournaments). I’d prefer to win in March. I don’t need to be regular season heroes anymore.
Watching the NCAAs now that we’re out. I really think every one of these teams would beat the shit out of us 7/10 times. They just look freaking better. Excluding 3 of the best players to ever play for us, and a little luck in 2019, we just don’t have or had another gear in March like the teams on TV right now.
I didn’t think it was that serious until I noticed you used all caps for serious and lots of bold font. You have my attention now.
I think it’s obvious (shown above), that without that run in 2019, the trajectory and perception of - and where we are as a program - would be dramatically different, locally and nationally.
That’s a fair opinion, I just don’t see Tony changing his approach in that regard–he’s always cared immensely about the regular season. We need guys that can win at all points in the season, it doesn’t have to be an either/or scenario.