Taine’s 9 minutes vs Miami were an anomaly. Other than that, he’s never cracked the 4-minute threshold against a team in the top 250 of KenPom.
As for Papi, he’s probably a closer case, but his PT and role has been bit of a rollercoaster all season.
Edit - I don’t really mind the general tone of what Tony is saying. Guys should stay ready, and all that good stuff. Same for Kadin, Taine, me, and Frank Costanza. It just seemed discordant to me to bring up other guys who are not at all (Taine) or not really (Papi) in similar situations as Kadin. But then you get back to the general theory of coach-speak to the media which is that it’s coaches’ jobs to win games, not to explain clearly to reporters how they’re trying to do that.
Rankings are fun when they are used to promote your team in a big TV game. That’s good publicity for the program and can’t hurt on the recruiting front.
But personally I am hoping for an upcoming story line of “the first game between UNC and Duke where both teams are unranked in xxx years!”
For me the bigger “huh” is that Shedrick has the highest PER (basically a total
measure of individual effectiveness) on the team in plenty of minutes and sample size and Caffaro and Murray are not close to that… would be really hard for any player to make sense of going from starter to out of the rotation while being the most efficient player on the team… and also while watching Gardner still getting more minutes while being the worst player in the rotation
On my other rant (the AP poll is silly), here is Davis’s full justification for dropping Houston:
• Houston’s loss to Temple didn’t qualify as a “didn’t matter” game because Temple is a mediocre team, and the game was at home. Still, it was a one-point loss, and the Law of Accumulation [Haney note: don’t worry … it’s some nonsensical law that Davis made up] works in the Cougars’ favor, since it was just their second loss of the season (the other came at home to Alabama), and the first loss since Dec. 10. I won’t even say that it “validated” my decision not to rank the Cougars No. 1, because my top-ranked team from last week lost twice. That’s what happens in this sport, and particularly this time of year. So I dropped Houston, but not too far. Memphis is the only other AAC teams ranked in the top 50 on KenPom, but the Tigers are unranked in the AP poll. So if Houston loses again soon, the Law of Accumulation will render a harsher judgment.
I mean, that’s just absolute gobbledygook word salad. It tells me nothing about Houston or Purdue. What would be actually valuable is if he said something like, after seeing Purdue continue to gut out close games (blah blah) and seeing Houston get out-toughed by an unranked team, I came to the conclusion that Purdue is the better team right now… Or something like that. That would be actually valuable insight! (God forbid…)
How is that measured exactly? If it’s heavily weighted by shooting percentage, most of his scores come from dunks off of the good play of others. It can’t be rebounding, which he doesn’t do well for his size. IMO he’s a great shot blocker as a secondary defender but not as a primary defender. He got outplayed in the post just recently by the freshman from Albany and by the guy who filled in for Bacot who I had never heard of. Those just come to mind, there are probably others. I mean is this like saying Papi is the best shooter on the team because he’s shooting 75%?
At some point Shedrick is going to have to learn an effective post move and/or a reliable mid-range jumper. But if he can’t, or won’t, do that, he’s just clogging up the lane on offense. He’s a better defender than Gardner, no argument there. But at this point, BVP and Dunn is our best front court for scoring, versatile defense, and rebounding. When Gardner’s out there, at least he’s a willing and pretty capable scorer from about 8 to 14 feet. When he’s off, I’d put Dunn in the whole time.
Here’s my main reason why I don’t love how we’ve let Shed’s minutes fall off a cliff**:
Because when we play teams with good / skilled / big / physical 5-men, like Clemson, UNC, and Duke, we will want plenty of Shed in there on defense (and probably some Papi, too). And also the types of teams we just might see in the tourney have those guys, too. Edey, Sanogo, Clingan, Timme, Tubelis, Omuroyi, etc. I love Dunn, but he’s not ready to guard true posts. And you’re giving up too much with BVP or Jayden guarding them. Basically, our ceiling outcome depends on a locked in Kadin. And while we can all wish and hope that guys will be mentally strong enough to go from 25ish minutes to 4 and back up to 25 a few games later, well there are better (IMHO) alternatives to wishin and hopin.
** IMO, that’s the issue. We found a really good offensive set and Kadin doesn’t fit. And we’ve found a super talented guy who can mitigate the defensive issues of playing that offense. So I understand why Kadin is not playing 25+ or so in the last three games, but I think we need to be “intentional” about getting him up in double digits (or so) in each game.
I agree we should always have a couple of bigs on the roster than can pound, rebound, and block some shots. There are times when that will be necessary. I just don’t understand why it’s so rare to have a post player that has some decent post moves. Anthony Gill was excellent. Mamadi was really good but he was more dynamic stylistically.
But if BVP can play good position defense and rebound well enough, his ability to knock down threes unlocks so many things in our offense that Shedrick doesn’t.
Something’s going right for the team when he’s on the court. In his nearly 347 minutes on the court, we’re +138 (+0.40 points per minute). In his little more than 373 minutes off the court, we’re +43 (0.12 per minute). We’re better when he’s on the court (+0.28 points per minute) than when he’s off it.
Our others who are in positive territory — differential between being on-court vs. off it — are Clark (+0.10 per minute), Beekman (+0.30 per minute, Franklin (+0.21 per minute), and Caffaro (!!) (+0.02 per minute).
Gardner is -0.32, Vander Plas -0.13, McKneely -0.17, Dunn -0.02, and Murray -0.36.
In our 13 P6+Houston games, UVa is +63 in Shedrick’s ~235 minutes and just +7 in his ~286 minutes. With Gardner in, UVa is +9 in ~302 minutes, and +61 when he’s off the court (218 minutes).
Agree - which is why I’m trying not to make this about “Don’t play BVP, play Shed!” or “Don’t play Jayden, play Shed!” or “Don’t play Dunn, play Shed!” I think all 4 of those guys have something to contribute against various opponents.
As for the lack of post moves, yeah. It is what is at this point. I think he has some stuff he could contribute offensively, but it’s not fitting in our current dominant offense very well. (Blake B looks like he has the beginnings of some classic post moves, fwiw)
No argument here. I’d rather everyone get in the game for a little bit in the first half to see who’s hot, what combinations are working, and throw some variety at the opponent so they can’t problem solve.
I assume you are referring to Shedrick. If those are season stats, would need to see trends and recent figures. We are playing differently, and individual guys are playing differently. Dunn’s development definitely changes things with his ability to rebound, block shots, and defense multiple positions. A week ago, I’d have said Dunn could capably guard positions 2-4. I’d have to say now he can cover all 5 when needed. His block against Appleby was some NBA level stuff. Appleby was getting by Reece and Kihei, so when Dunn covered him out to defend the 3-pt shot, there’s no shame in Appleby getting by him. But to recover to block a layup from behind was incredible. That’s just a dimension we didn’t have a month ago, or maybe even a week ago that we knew of.
But, no, if you were to take the top 5, would be Clark, Beekman, Franklin, Dunn and Shedrick. I’m not sure how much that lineup has actually played together though.
(Incidentally, I will say — and unsure whether it was by design or not — but Dunn was hitting the offensive glass from the wings on multiple shot attempts, along with whoever was on the blocks. That seems a departure from previous teams when anyone more than 17 feet from the rim retreated to play defense once a shot went up to cut down on transition baskets.)
Yeah. Specifically would like to see 1) since Reece got hurt to now, 2) since Reece got healthy again. I don’t think it’ll be bad but may not be as stellar as the full season since Shed played better early and what we ran benefitted him.
I love how the polls can get totally scrambled from week to week, as if the voters have no confidence at all in anything they thought they knew 7 days ago. (“Oh no, Top Team X lost a game, I must move them down several spots!”) Whereas the computer polls barely change at all at this point in the season. (“Top Team X lost a game? That’s not terribly surprising because statistics. Now that I have 21 data points on Team X, instead of the 20 I had a few days ago, I can fine-tune my prediction slightly.”)
