šŸ€ UVa Men's Basketball - January 2024

Men's Basketball
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Coming into 2024, some great news for our Hoos:

  • Great position for the tourney!! We already have 2 quad 1 wins and zero quad 4 losses! That alone has us positioned well going into the meat of ACC play.
  • We got pros!! We have a guy whoā€™s a potential lottery pick, and another guy who could probably be getting paid ~$500k in the NBA right now, but chose to come back and be our senior PG.
  • Oodles of young talent!! We got 4 guys in the frosh/soph classes who are top 75 guys who have already at least flashed that talent at the high major level.

We all saw the ND debacle, but things are good!

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Wait how was the ND game not a quad 4 loss?

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Because beating our a$$ gave them a boost of like 250 points in the NET, or so.

Quad 3 is 135-240 (for away games), and they are in the 180s after our game. Hoping they avoid slipping to quad 4, with outside chance of quad 2? Maybe?

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More great news.

At 1am on Monday, January 1, Christian Bliss - Virginia PG of the future - posted a photo of himself in the UVa practice gym working on his game.

The young gentleman has that dawg in him. I hope he also has some fun in him.

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Can he shoot? Get to the hoop? If yes to one or both, whatā€™s he up to the next couple of months?

(see how quickly I turn negative?) :joy:

(also, just to be clear, Iā€™m not advocating taking off the shirtā€¦ at this point in time)

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Win close and lose bigā€¦ thatā€™s how you game the NET for good quad results. Most people are thinking about this all backward!

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3 posts were merged into an existing topic: Outside the ACC - January 2024

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Biggest reason for UVAā€™s recent struggles?

  • Dung Beetle Cav man logo
  • Ugly jerseys
  • That Tony refused to stream the blue-white scrimmage, therefore spitting in the face of the 5 pillars
  • Our refusal to embrace the color Orange.
0 voters
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Any interesting nuggets from JWilly?

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If ever a poll needed an all of the above optionā€¦

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I liked that nugget about Bliss being a natural leader

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Wait, why is there no ā€œall of the aboveā€ option?

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RE Zone Defense:

I couldnā€™t remember the first game we used it to double check, but per the ā€˜Cutsā€™ clips from the ND game, we ran the Zone this time with

Reece
Isaac
Taine
Rohde
Dunn

i.e. a guard-heavy, small-ball lineup.

I donā€™t know what the plan was with the switch this time, but IF (big if) itā€™s something weā€™re thinking of working in from time to time, wouldnā€™t it make sense to do it with the guy who played in a zone for four years, and won his conferenceā€™s POY and DPOY doing so (and who also struggles with our base defense)?

Something like

Reece
Eli
Rohde
Dunn
Minor

seems like it could be pretty disruptive, like those long athletic Syracuse teams.

Again, donā€™t know what the thought was (I think we had started a small comeback before switching to zoneā€” weird!), but seems like we might as well try the guy that knows how to do it.

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https://twitter.com/HoosFootball/status/1742263522107535642

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Ok, the 3 I donā€™t know are the 2 seated on the front right, and the 1 kneeling in front of Ewing.

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Based on follow up posts, the Memphis State player (front right seated) is Keith Lee.

The one kneeling in front of Ewing is Dale Ellis and the other one seated to the left of Keith Lee is Ennis Whatley.

(And this is just further proof that I am truly an old man now)

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Yes budding NBA players, staying an extra year CAN make a difference. cc: Ryan Dunn

https://x.com/DraftExpress/status/1742626383048659412?s=20

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Ok, Ellis I might have gotten eventually. The other 2, probably not.

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The Portland Trailblazers LOVE that picture.

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