Both Papi and Shedrick have missed a ton of development time with injury/illness and finally saw a relatively healthy offseason this year. We may be seeing Papi finally develop into the player that we hoped he would be with more playing time and development.
By the way, lost development time to injury/illness/covid protocols has really plagued this group. What we perceive as recruiting misses may be guys who would have developed into strong players with a normal player development situation. Kody, Papi, and Kadin are the three most obvious examples.
How many games has Kadin gotten quick two fouls this season? Seems like most. Maybe off the bench is the right move resulting in more PT for him throughout the game. More development and better for the team
Yeah, I could have been more clear. I thought Shedrick was actually perfectly solid on the defensive end. Aluma scored over him a couple times, but thatās going to happen and Shedrick usually was in good position. He gave up the baseline once - which in our system is not OK - but it was one time. He hedged and recovered well, especially given the distances he was being asked to cover.
The offensive end was where Iād say it was a rough night. He never managed to get involved offensively at all, whereas Caffaro was able to. And Shedrickās second foul was a dumb bad screen on the offensive end where he was late and lunged into a dude. I know heās had ups and downs, but I do sometimes wonder if itād be helpful to run a few more plays early for him to get him feeling more involved on that end. But I donāt know - might be on him, not play design. Heāll get there - Iām not very worried about his future if he keeps up his high level of effort.
I will say, Papi started the 2H, right? As far as I can remember (and Iām probably forgetting one), that was the first different post-half starting lineup. Anyone remember? If Iām right, we couldāve seen some early returns into Tonyās thinking going forward.
It wouldnāt be my first tweak to the starting lineup, but this team needs some shaking up, so fine by me.
I also had to change my mindset when I played. Didnt matter who starts it matters what you do with your time on the floor. You have to play so that the coaches CANT take you out when you have chances
Agree, I think Kadin would benefit from coming off the bench if Papi can play close to that.
It seems like Papi is having the game slow down for him just a bit. A little more under control.
Also, Iāve been very impressed with Reece recently. Heās starting to pull the trigger on some 3s, heās being more aggressive, and his ability to turn defense into offense is so helpful to prevent scoring droughts.
Gotta get his coordination and strength up. Kadin on offense still gets bounced around like a ping pong ball. He needs some more strength and coordination and he can. Right now heās not a strong finisher at the rim esp in traffic.
I was too into the game to bring it up last night butā¦how the heck did Joe Lunardi have VT in the NCAAT? They had 1 Top 100 NET win, and barely that. Navy was in the 90s. I know because I looked it up when writing the game preview. I assumed Maryland and maybe St. Bon were their best wins, but both were outside 100. Thereās just no way that resume should have been considered worthy of tourney consideration.
Yeah, I think the NCAA erred in how they managed how the NET works with the selection process. It would have been way cleaner to have the NET be a pure predictive rating system (e.g. KenPom) that then informs a strength-of-record metric (e.g. wins above bubble). But that would require taking the selection committee out of the actual selecting, which I donāt think theyāve ever shown an inclination to do.
They are the team that keeps losing close games at the endā¦ itās the opposite of our 2019-2020 teamā¦ if we are the opposite side of the 2/3 point margins on a couple of those games early in the season, it wouldāve been UVa that no one could figure out. Fortunately for usā¦ UVa kept squeaking by w/ those 2 to 3 point wins all season!
I think towards the bubble they are still taking into account projections for the rest of the season along with results and thatās where the KenPom ratings come into play. VT, although currently 0-4 in the ACC, has the easiest remaining ACC schedule according to Bart Torvik. They are favored in all but 3 of their remaining games.