What if MJ had been drafted by the Blazers?
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First time I’ve seen “we missed the tournament in 2022” cited as evidence that Tony is a bad coach in March.
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We looked like we were asked to battle a 3-headed Medusa when they pulled out the 1-3-1. What kind of mythlogical beast is this? No one told us we needed to pack a mirror!
I agree, it would be a serious mind-fk if we pulled out a surpise of our own once in awhile. But I think CTB is too dogmatic for that. (You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks).
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We got good looks (after the shaky start against it) — but it took us out of our game of pounding it inside for four possessions.
After the Murray turnover on the first possession, Clark had a clean look from 19, McKneely had a clean look from three, then it was Franklin’s turn to miss an open one from outside the arc, then McKneely broke us out of the rut with a layup.
At that point we started getting it inside again — Beekman missed a contested shot at the rim and Shedrick drew a shooting foul on the block.
And, Furman was back to man with some zone sprinkled in — the Gardner miss from midrange with 5:55 left was against the 1-3-1.
The main problem is we are not consistently getting top 60 recruits. Why? money? pace of play? CTB has proven he can develop talent but whatever reason he has not been good on the recruiting road.
I’m ready for Williford to get a head job. It’s time.
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Sorta burying the lede here. I believe the answer is simple for losses in the tournament - as pointed out luck has a lot to do with it. And our talent has not panned out as hoped (and that is on Tony for evaluating and offering). I look out at the coaching landscape and really, identify someone who can have sustained success over a 10 year period in the ACC that isn’t already at a better gig? Tony on a hot seat? We should all remember that Virginia may be on the hot seat in Tony’s view at some point in the not too distant future. And we are naive children if we don’t think CTB doesn’t review his performance annually and want to correct issues and win a Natty every year - and we get to have maybe 10% of the information and analysis he does. The man is as pure a competitor as anyone in the game. Is he perfect no, but he’s a damn sight closer than almost anyone in the college game.
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Why is it blasphemy to suggest that the program has a systemic issue (empirically, the worst tournament performance against seed of any program in the country over the last decade plus) and expect Tony to seriously address the issue in a comprehensive way? If you want to say that bad luck explains losing to a 16 and two 13s in 3 of the last 4 tournaments and that there isn’t a systemic issue (even a multi-factored, complex one), I don’t know what to tell you. No one is saying fire Tony or that replacing him would be a sure-fire fix. But I as a fan want more at this point than “In Tony We Trust” no matter what. Yes, winning a national championship is an incomparable thrill for which I am forever grateful and Tony deserves all the credit in the world for that. But Maryland won one too years ago and is now just another pretty good Power 5 program.
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Yeah, discussed it a lot at the time. We went for the smaller lineup and it worked well for several games, but Shed sorta disappeared for a while, and we were all left guessing why. Glad he got some chances to re-emerge in the tourneys.
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Not enough offensive talent and skill is the consistent pattern I see. Every team we play in March seems to have more offensive talent and better shooters. The skill part may be made worse because CTB devotes 99% of practice time to defense (I exaggerate I know). Compromise a little in recruiting and pratices to get better balance between offense and defense. Football coaches talk about winning in all 3 phases..o, d, and special teams. Sometimes it seems CTB tries to win with only defense. In March a lit of teams bear down and play harder on defense.
Not necessarily disagreeing, but the 2021 team that lost to Ohio had 3 guys who are currently in the NBA, Murphy a starter and Hauser a key reserve.
I agree with those saying the NCAAT losses (and other close calls) to lower teams are something that the coaches should explore. They talk about attention to detail, and this is an area with too much regularity to ignore as an issue.
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In general I was happy with this season.
A few big things that I’ve reflected on more in the negative category:
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Reece’s injury. How different does the season go without it? Clearly bothered him throughout and we learned that during the ACCT coverage. He’s such an important piece to hit the team’s ceiling.
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Why did it take the team so long to adjust after triangle offense sputtered? We clearly got a whole lot better when BVP went out, we went back to blocker mover, and Kadin got more regular minutes. Why weren’t we mixing that in earlier when there was a very clear 4-5 game stretch where we looked dreadful? Some of that was defense and intensity, but clearly a good bit was offense.
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As others have said the need for long, experienced athletes who can defend the 3/4 and aren’t a total offensive liability. Imo the biggest difference between 2014-2019 and 2020-present.
On the positive:
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We had depth to try different things and flexibility to match with teams. That’s absolutely massive. We saw it in 2019. With a healthy team this year I think we were a 2-3 seed because of that versatility. Needed more at the 5 position, plus the missing piece from #3 above. But all together, much more versatile.
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Bright future with Dunn and McKneely. We need packline experience to be a great defensive team. We don’t get back to elite without a top 10 defense. I’m hopeful the young talent sticks around to get us back to where we were on defense. (You could see how much better Gardner was on D with experience).
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Glad to see Bennett experimenting, even if a little too slow and reactive for my taste.
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Re next year, new article out from Mike Barber. Starts with Traudt, and him being really excited for next year. Then mentions Reece as discussed. Then mentions Armaan as a guy who doesn’t sound like he’s leaving. Then
mentions Sheds and Taine as guys who once looked like likely transfers, but then they started getting playing time. Had a quote from Sheds along lines of “I’m not even thinking about that right now; need to process loss.”
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Link?
Edit:
Also these sound pretty non committal to me
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https://twitter.com/rtd_mikebarber/status/1637423176496889863?s=46&t=XT5REQoBuYpMFHT1W93Qrw
Not much to read into honestly
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Yeah agreed. I don’t buy that Shedrick hasn’t thought about it but do buy that he’s probably undecided still.
There was nothing to read into on Traudt but again, outside of that completely random rumor , I don’t think any of us would even be sweating him coming back.
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If discussion is going to continue on this it may be worth moving to the transfer thread. But yeah Shedrick definitely thought about it; and his answer could easily be read as his mind is made up to leave but saying it after a crushing loss is poor form
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Because they are. Lot of hoping in that article. He only quotes 4 players. Dunn and Beekman are the only ones who talk about being here next year. Cedric basically says “man, I don’t know right now.”
And sorry, but words matter. Traudt’s quote doesn’t exactly fill me with confidence.
“I’m just really sad for these guys that they had to go out like this,” Traudt said…“Just seeing how March can go down, just prepares me for the future."
“These” guys and how “they” had to go out? “My” future? Maybe nothing doesn’t it doesn’t sound great.
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On the bright side all will likely be revealed in the next week
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Not suggesting it’s blasphemy. Not saying in CTB I always trust (he was deer in headlights for the Syracuse collapse). A “systemic issue” makes a great talking point, just not sure that the sample size makes for a good data set. If CTB were to win 8 games in the NCAA over the next 5 years (not unreasonable), would we view the 15 year period differently or had Tony “fixed” the systemic issues.
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