I assume this means Robbie Beran is projected top 13.
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Yeah. The team with Herb Jones doesnāt seem like the obvious choice to draft āHerb Jones 2.0ā.
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I dunno why they bother putting teams in there, we are so far away from knowing draft order. Maybe for SEO purposes?
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Iāll have some things in my piece tomorrow that are part of it but donāt speak to it as a broader trend like that.
Itās not any one thing, IMO. Before the Texas Southern game Florida was really the best defensive team we played. They arenāt as good as Wisconsin in that area and are about on par with WVU. The Tarleton St. and NC A&T defenses just werenāt good enough, and more specifically were just not big enough, to gauge it well. Size is hard for us in the way that weāre constructed and all of the last three opponents had itā¦ Weāre really looking at an N of 1 re: the Florida game as being more relevant to these other teams.
Some of it is McKneely and Dunnās health (definitely most relevant in the Texas Southern game where McKneely just didnāt play and they were even in zone at times, and the Wisconsin game as Dunn really didnāt try to create anything on his own after the fall and was sagged off of all game, which hurt us across the board - he was able to attack that more going to the rim against WVU). Some of it is just that the team was missing some open looks that it was hitting before (the Groves downturn was most notable in that area), and a lot of it was that Buchanan was playing with a ton of aggression in the Florida game (18 points from him is a significant bump) but was playing much more passively ever after.
The Buchanan apparent shift in mentality is the one thatās been most noticeable and with the least clear explanation (Groves was bound to regress to the mean with his shot as the year progressed - he was around 70% from deep after a few games). It seemed like he was playing with all of the confidence in the world vs. Florida - taking what was there whether it be in the midrange or going downhill at the hoop and drawing contact. Against Wisconsin and WVU he looked both timid and like he was rushing, especially after he got his shot blocked a couple of times. It certainly makes sense that a young player like that will have such swings - but even still it seems sudden considering the high of the Florida game and the relative lack of time that passed between then and Fort Myers. His is the situation Iām most worried about over the long term, because being a big for CTB can be a wild ride, especially if youāre fouling out and giving up so many rebounds. Probably one of the single most important variables, IMO, will be whether or not Buchanan is playing with confidence and aggression as the season wears on, because we need to have someone other than Ryan Dunn to be able to regularly generate points/fouls in the paint after Reece (and hopefully others) creates something.
I also think thereās an environmental element where sometimes teams just donāt feel or play right in contained windows of time/settings and I do think there was some of that going on in Fort Myers.
The long and the short of it is that weāre probably going to be a pretty variable offense on a game-to-game basis, at least early in the season, but some of the situational stuff that hampered us most against Wisconsin shouldnāt be an issue moving forward and there does seem to be a lot of room for most of our guys to find more comfortable roles so that they can be more reliable as secondary scoring options.
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Yes, all these lists are just big boards. They donāt consider team needs until much closer to the draft. Itās a way to get NBA fans to click (more than SEO, but I guess thatās more or less the same).
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Which is MORE likely to occur next spring?
- UVA makes the NCAAT
- Ryan Dunn goes pro
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voters
I voted Ryan Dunn goes pro but I want to make it clear I almost certainly think both happen without much of a doubt.
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Yeah, Iām somewhere in the neighborhood of 75% RD and 66.67% tourney. Give or take
That Florida win was yuge, but not quite as yuge as looking like an NBa all-defense candidate
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Would love to see the same poll after the Cuse game vs now. Think weāll have a much better read on season expectations come Sunday
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50% chance RD pro
1% chance we make the tournament unless we win tomorrow
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This guy gets it.
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Yeah man we gotta beat Cuse. They are sitting above 100 in Kenpom the metrics hate them so that would be a bad home loss
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I love JWilly. He is not shy about answering questions. He appeared on the Coaches Corner Show Tuesday evening with John Freeman (sitting in for TB)
John asked him who the best pound for pound athlete on the team is. Who had the best combination of strength, jumping ability, and lateral quickness. His answer surprised me.
He said first would be IMac ā¦ then Elijah and ARob would be next behind IMac. And that Ryan Dunn would be 4th. He said that ARob can jump out of the building and has very good lateral movement.
Evidently IMac has much more to show us athletically than what we have seen so far.
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Love that he has A-Rob in there. Particularly since pound for pound he has the most pounds.
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I can see it. IMac has those closeouts where his man thinks he can use his momentum against him to drive, but then IMac stops, beats him to the spot, and stands him up completely with his strength.
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I like angry iMac 
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I love JWilly too but it seems crazy if 2 of 4 arent even playing this yearā¦
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Is this the explanation for why there was a random teddy bear in one of the recruiting visit photos from earlier this season?
https://x.com/uvavsp/status/1729871882588139989?s=46&t=wAzMZR-0PRGT1LpN6U5x0g
But we alsoā¦ donāt have skilled bigs so we should use it?
Itās a vicious cycle because it makes it hard to recruit skilled bigs thus we get stuck without them. Tonyās been here for 15 years and weāve had 2.5 bigs who have an inside game. Really only AG with a somewhat traditional around the basket game
Much prefer the offense we saw tonight. Hope itās the new base offense moving forward