UVA will be playing Maine today at 4:00 P.M. EST. Come here to talk about the game
Justin McKoy should see a lot of minutes.
Braxton and Kody are out.
I’m going to break usual protocol and share Jamie Oakes post to subscribers from the Wahoos247 forum. It’s been passed around everywhere as “rumors” to avoid admitting they’re flat out taking his information. Since it’s already out there, Jamie should at least be given credit for it. It’ll be a similar situation as Kihei last season for Braxton, presumably playing in some sort of cast upon return.
UVA statement with the starting lineups “Braxton Key had surgery for a wrist injury and there is no timetable for his return”
Clark Morsell Tomas Mamadi Huff the starters.
On the bright side, now is the best time for injuries before conference play, and gives the new guys more time to acclimate to a college court…but loosing starters is never a good thing. Hoping for a speedy recovery for both these guys.
Gonna be some weird lineups in this one. Nixon already making an appearance and McKoy briefly played at guard.
Nixon’s playing some great defense out there, I love it
Over the years we have seen how other teams have “good” open shots against the packline but just miss them. There is so much pressure to make those clean looks that the shots become more difficult. I can’t help but feel that our guards and wings feel some of that pressure this year. Diakite, Huff, and Key are such good and experienced players, and the defense is clearly elite. If one or more of the guys can get to a decent level of efficiency from the outside it would propel this team leaps and bounds. And they know that.
Just a terrible offensive display, no way around it. Poor shooting will get the attention, but the disappointing part is that they need to take this many jumpers against Maine. I get that Maine is scheming to force it but when the talent gap is this large that shouldn’t matter.
Agreed. Diakite and Huff are so skilled, versatile and more talented that the team should be able to scheme to those physical advantages. Morsell should continue to attack the basket like he did against ASU. Half of Virginia’s shots against Maine should not be 3’s.
Need to make a conscious effort to throw the ball into the post. Maybe some blocker mover where, after the guard catches off the screen on the wing, big gets position and has ball thrown in. Need to take advantage of size advantage. Probably will be fine with a bad offensive performance today, but I wish we’d come out with the game plan to bully them them in the post all game, especially with the lack of perimeter players due to injuries.
Interestingly, I think they just went into the triangle offense we saw late last year. I’m actually writing something on that right now. Could’ve been just one or two possessions, but would love to see that scheme again.
They are indeed in the triangle right now out of the 16 min break, 3 or 4 possessions of it so far. Hasn’t been great other than the open 3 for Clark. Then went into a continuity ball screen o for one possession, then the 4 out, ball screen offense built around Ty last yr.
This is nuts. I’ll say it, Woldo isn’t very good. We are now finally seeing the results of our atrocious 17 and 18 recruiting. Marco, Frankie, Kody. Those three spots should currently be occupied by semi competent P5 players that would be helping offensively right now. The reality check is coming in the next 10 days. UNc and Purdue have big physical dudes that will negate our inside advantage
Maybe I shouldn’t say this. But these bad misses are just so far out of character for Casey. I can’t help but wonder if they’ve tried to tinker with his 3-point shot, arc or whatever. He’s comfortable now, that’s no longer an issue.
I hope Tomas get comfortable soon. He keeps passing up open shots.
I feel like they wouldn’t have tried that this early, and that they wouldn’t need to considering his proficiency in hs. This is all speculation, but maybe it’s the increased distance. You can be a great shooter from a certain distance, but increasing that even by just 6 inches could be enough to throw him off. Could also be in his head a bit, he’s passed up a few threes for the one more pass that I wish he’d taken.
I’m gonna chalk some of this up to guys not bring real focused but no a lot to be encouraged about
This is another thing l question a little. I was all for expanding beyond blocker/mover full time. It limited playmakers, not to mention made recruiting very difficult. But is this really the year to expand even further or should they be simplifying? Maybe it’ll pay off in the long run, nothing should be judged right now.
And this is sort of a separate point, but I think blocker/mover is like the wishbone in football. You either do it and master it, or you don’t bother. It might have limited upside in the past, but it also gave a higher floor. Which really was Dick’s whole purpose for it. I’m not sure it does as a part-time offense where they can’t drill in all the intricacies.