No I donât agree with you. I
You are trying to argue that we are talented and we just arenât. I donât use draft boards as my measuring stick for talent. Nor do I really care for rankings. I see what players do with minutes and see their obvious limitations.
Like you were saying âwhy not make Dunn getting downhill an emphasis to build confidence?â⌠we had been doing that all year. Heâs just not a confident kid except for when he gets excited in a transition dunk.
But if I follow your line of thinking, how would I attribute anything to coaching? That is, if on court production is the main (only?) way to divine talent, how do you know how well or poorly a coach is using the guys on his roster?
My thought is you need an external proxy, flawed though they may be
Thatâs a deeper conversation and not to dominate this thread but Im just going to leave it at I personally donât think that Dunnâs lack of an outside shot or confidence has as much to do with Tonyâs under performance this season, regardless of where Dunn is on the draft boards.
Dunn cutting and attacking the rim has been a part of our scheme for a while. Kid just isnât physical enough or confident enough yet in the half court.
Hard to believe that our first basket of the season was a Dunn 3-pointer only 22 seconds into the game. Such a promising start.
Where is the choice for all of the above?
Thanks for this. The general consensus here before the season was our floor was bubble team and ceiling 4-5 seed.
Thatâs mostly held with Rohde being worse than expected, Minor slightly worse/less reliable, Dante being slightly worse, and Groves being as expected. And Bond being absent. With that in mind, itâs like âyeah ok I get why we have our record.â Itâs the blowouts that hang with people though and are hardest to stomach. Thatâs the thing that is outside of preseason expectations - not the record as much.
Lots to say about the talent question.
Tonys a great evaluator. Potential is potential until itâs realized. It takes a long time for some guys - or in some systems.
In general, itâs not a surprise that the core of our highest graded talent is also our youngest. Itâs always been year 2/3/4 - mostly Y3/4 that we see talent realized.
The most interesting argument imo is that something about Tony, our system, etc is not help guys achieve their potential soon enough. Playing time part of that equation but not the only thing.
That said, thereâs a tension between helping all individuals achieve their potential simultaneously in a team sport while trying to win games as a team unit.
I think we could probably do better with that balance, but also donât think itâs a huge swing in tactical approach that is often suggested or assumed.
On a confidence scale, I feel about 40% about all of this so not going to hang my hat on it haha
For the love of god, he just needs to stop playing Dante. Letâs just start with that and then hopefully we can move on to rohde vs taine.
You know itâs a bad sign when the post-mortem thread effectively has started before the end of the regular seasonâŚ
I agree with this, but at the same time I feel like Rohde being good was such an important factor for this team and beyond.
Yes.
And that was the problem from the start, recruiting woes and transfers forced us to go all in this kid who wasnât nearly ready. If you want an impact transfer in this era, you better be ready to pay up, not settle
We better have some big bags ready for the transfer portal
I am posting this after having attended an event in Florida with Tony B and Ron S the prior week. The point of the post is to share what I learned but also reinforce that EVERYONE around the program is focused on getting us back into the National Championship contention. I spoke briefly with both coaches but am going to stick with what they (and some large donors) said during the presentation portion.
Tony is embracing NIL today
Ron S helped with the NIL push with Tony. I have a strong suspicion that Ronâs return will help with our recruiting (seems like we have had more missed evaluations after he left). @HoozGotNext any thoughts here?
UVA basketball is in the top third for NIL in the ACC but we are clearly behind UNC and Duke in dollars. Football was much lower per Carla W.
Multiple larger donors / BOV types made it clear that the sports programs are a priority. Using the endowment to help with the NIL push in on the table. We do not want to become Stanford when the Pac 12 dissolved was a common reframe (e.g. we want to control our destiny with conference realignment and need to invest $$$, particularly in football).
One prominent donor made it clear that we are playing to win championships in basketball and we all need to give a little more to make that happen (e.g. NIL). We have been at a multi-million dollar disadvantage versus UNC on the NIL front â I suspect that will change.
Tony seemed very engaged and self-depreciating â he made reference to the loss at VPI as making it easier to come down and ask for more help. I did not get the sense he was thinking of retiring from coachingâŚ
The school very much views the athletic program as the âfront porchâ of the University and believes that athletic success is leveraged in admissions and larger donations.
All of us are frustrated with the relative lack of success (although I would not characterize two ACC regular season championships since 2019 as unsuccessful). I think now is the time to get behind Tony and staff and hopefully we get another shot at a âtitle fightâ sometime in the near future.
Go Hoos!!
Really appreciated, @palmtreehoo, good to get a little bit of the behind-the-curtains look. âTitle fightâ is a good term, we know TB loves him some boxing (or at least the Rocky movies), and I kinda think he sees his career like a boxer who is going to keep going until he thinks his title fight potential is behind him or is satisfied with the number of fights he has been in.
As someone who doesnât understand how such things work, can the endowment be used towards NIL push? I didnât think that was a thingâŚ
I do not recall the specifics on how the endowment dollars can get spent but I know there are restrictions / technical issues. My understanding is the Board of Visitors is looking at how we can apply larger matches to existing donations / $ commitments (e.g. 4X a dollar invested into the athletic program). We were told to reach out to people we know on the Board of Visitors to advocate for Endowment being used to support athletics.
The thing is I donât think we settled. We keyed in on Rohde and other schools (Iowa and Creighton who were tampering/ Marquettte had interest) wanted him too. I think Rohde is just a horrendous stylistic fit on top of being really shook with his confidence when uncomfortable.
Minor was a guy we keyed in on too, defensive conference player of the year and a guy Iowa and Seton Hall wanted BAD. But he was also a horrendous stylistic fit. Going from 4 years of zone to hard hedging.
I wouldnât call them elite, but I do think both are also way better than their putrid stats. Thatâs where I think Tony struggled adjusting; trying to maximize the positive impact of guys who donât fit what Tony is used to doing.
Thank you for this Matty