Last year, TSU scored a higher % of their points at the FT line than any other team in college hoops and their opponents, collectively, were #5. Refs obviously impact things, but by and large every TSU game is an absolute foul-fest.
Its was really interesting playing them, and I’m glad the team scheduled them. But I’m ok not playing them again soon and their tendencies are so extreme that its hard to extrapolate very much about UVA as a team from that game. With the benefit of hindsight I wish we’d played them around Thanksgiving rather than to start the season, but that’s purely as a fan rather than “what’s best for the team”.
Yeah, on a neutral court, I’d bet straight-up UVA’s bench lineup vs ND or Louisville certainly, and maybe even BC. Sure, that’s a low bar, but they’re still ACC teams!
But conversely Leon Bond and Blake Buchanan have emerged in both of their places. We originally were worried that Leon wasn’t getting much press, and that he may be relegated down to the 8th or 9th man, and that Buchanan was going to start behind Minor.
Now of course in the upcoming games both of these sets of individuals could flip flop, BUT we atleast know the potential of Bond and Blake, and it’s tbd with Rohde and Minor.
Since we are all UVa fans here I feel like this can be shared. For people who don’t like sharing content from *other sites it doesn’t mean that we love LRA any less
I agree, I think Rohde could be our x-factor. We have a pretty good idea what we’ll get from our other key players, but Rohde is a bit of a wildcrad at this point. If he can become another reliable creator or even just a guy that can go off every few games, I think that takes our team to another level. He seemed a bit hesitant out there on Monday, but that’s to be expected. Hopefully as he gets more comfortable in his role, he will show what he is capable of.
I think if you had went out with the cheerleaders at the timeout and did the chicken dance they would review if your elbow movements were a flagrant 1.
Feel the same. He checks a lot of boxes for us. He can lock up other athletes on the perimeter, keep them off the glass, and convert his opportunities on offense. Great attitude and energy.
Bond might be the highest ceiling glue guy we’ve had here under Bennett. Him being a wing hybrid allows us a lot of versatility with our lineups, and his plus athleticism really makes sure we’re able to make up for any deficiencies on defense.
My opinion really hasn’t changed much. This team will be as good as Reece, IMac, and Dunn make it. One caveat now being it might be how good Dunn and Bond are combined at that 4 spot
I think at this point I don’t yet want Rohde bringing the ball up the court, but I think he can be a good secondary handler/initiator once we’re in the half court offense. I loved a few of his aggressive passes to cutters.
Absolutely true, and we’re happy because there’s a lot of life-time win from this development. Plus, young player development is always exciting because projecting into the future is fun.
But the short-run hit of Minor being a 9th/10th man instead of functional starter and Rohde not currently looking like a threat to lead the team in scoring is substantial and will probably cost us a game or more this season.
True, I do assume a good bit of coming down to earth for Bond. Though its funny, Bond was an absolute beast in the B&W game. And then all the whispers came out about “We’re happy, but temper expectations because he’s not THAT good.”
And then in the first game of the season Bond is like “LOL, YES I AM!”
