Yes, thatâs what Iâm saying. Not that it might take us to a title contender in one offseason, but that it would have an impact on the kind of player we can attract in the portal, which would be big.
I think people underappreciate the man hours that come along with responding to 50-70 recruiting efforts. You arenât going to do a deep dive on each, youâre going to whittle aggressively at first, then again, then again. By the time you get to the point where you might be tracking down detailed looks, weâre out already in a lot of those circumstances just because we werenât forthcoming initially.
Itâs really the answer to why our transfers in used to be Anthony Gill, Braxton Key, Trey Murphy, Sam Hauser pre-NIL and now theyâre Armaan Franklin, Jayden Gardner, BVP, Minor, Groves, Rohde, Harris.
Itâs pro players (at least G league guys) vs., mostly, overseas guys.
And the difference is that, previously, the package of CTB and program and school were the only thing we had to compete with re: draws.
I think we could still get that first group of player quality if our NIL situation was clearer up front.
Think about a guy like Dalton Knecht. Pretty sure he got a nice bag at Tennessee AND ALSO is setting himself up (maybe - we shall see) for a nice pay day come draft day.
For a while, I thought we could be the âwe will develop you for the NBAâ school in the transfer market, while other schools do the thing where they pay dudes who wonât be pros, but the Knecht situation (there are others Iâm sure), that show that the dudes who want to play in the NBA can find a nice landing spot where they can know theyâll get bank going in, too.
Thatâs a hypothesis but Iâm not sure if itâs the only explanation. Iâd be curious if there are particular guys that people think would be examples of 1) someone not looking for pay-to-play and 2) deterred by UVAâs more subtle NIL approach.
Also, worth noting that Gill and Trey werenât exactly headliner transfers coming in. Trey was in like the 40s on lists of transfer additions, and Gill had a solid season for a freshman at SCar, but nothing standout. Easy to look at those guys through the hindsight lens.
If you believe metrics sites like Evan Miya - our highest rated transfer in this year was Dante Harris at 153. Both Minor and Groves outside of the 200s.
Thatâs a significant drop from the 40s.
There may be multiple variables at play, but the shift in athleticism/skill coming in coincided with the portal really taking off and NIL blowing up - and we know these things about how the program handles it vs. others. Iâd be hard pressed to find an argument that itâs not the most significant difference convincing.
Especially when you look at how H.S. recruiting hasnât taken a similar drop.
I feel thereâs some benefit of hindsight going on here. Gill wasnât a top 100 kid out of HS and while he had a nice freshman year at SC, he wasnât nearly the player he was at UVA. And he didnât make it to the NBA until the '21 season. And, sure, Murphy has been amazing, but his soph year at Rice wasnât all that much better than Rohdeâs year at St Thomas.
Hauserâs different and an obvious home run, but he was pretty exceptional compared to the pre-NIL folks as well as the post-NIL folks, with maybe Key the only one having an argument.
Tbh, biggest one was probably Nichols. We wouldnât be in that one today (though I spose one might argue that we shouldnât be in that one, to which I would say âyes, we shouldâ and then others would say âNoâ and I would say âYesâ ⌠and on and on weâd go like that for a spell)
Also feel the need to add that, yes, hindsight is generally how we view the past. Not clear to me we have a different option.
Itâs not about what they were ranked coming out of HS, itâs about what they represented at the time compared to other available options, skill, and upside.
Gill we could debate, but there were just far fewer transfers back then and he chose us and I recall him being a very exciting/big addition when we landed him (and, yes, hindsight, but IIRC the expectations were always pretty high and hindsight does help to verify perception). I donât think the quality (or perceived quality at the time) of Key, Murphy, or Hauser coming into the program is at all comparable to our recent classes, though (neither in initial perception nor actuality).
Oh, sure. But one of those groups of people mostly happened in the past, so we can view them in hindsight while the other group is more present-ish so we kinda canât.
Do you have any examples of a player(s) we mightâve been able to get if we were more aggressive with the NIL? Just tyring to get a sense of how different our teams could have looked and would this be enough to get us back to elite status.
Exactly and this is the problem with some of these misinformed Twitter Accounts that are not doing Uva a service by their speculation. What can we do to overcome this internal self-sabotage?
This is actually a problem. There are 350-400 D1 teams that are eligible to make the tournament each year.
if we are within the top 10-20% means that we are ranked between the Number 35-70 teams (being conservative). However our goal as a program is trying to retain/re-establish a top 10 ranking so that we can be in the conversation for a National championship so being a number 35 program (at the high end) is way too low.
Being a 35 program is likely ranked BENEATH the Marquetteâs, Creightons, Providences, Georgetowns of the world being realistic, which for our prestige is way too low.
Yeah, but he was 3rd with 7.6 ppg because they were 10-21 with 10 guys playing 10+ minutes/game. Their #3 guy in FGA, Damien Leonard, hit 31% of his 3s and 29% of his 2s for the season. The competition wasnât stiff.
I do like this strategy as well. I think back to when Joe Harris was on the Nets along with some of their players that really helped build a name for them through hard work and team playâŚas soon as KD, Kyrie and James Harden arrived- that whole program was completely blown up; and then they left for more money elsewhere and left that team in shambles. Joe and others were traded away to make room for them, and the culture changedâŚ
I suppose that you *have to try and make room for superstars like KD, Harden or Kyrie, but then on the other side of it are that the resources were tapped and diminished and the culture was destroyed.
