Those numbers def match the eye test. Groves + Dunn doesn’t seem to work against a real big man… think we should probably scrap it altogether tbh
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I think the Groves-Dunn pairing has its place, but it might be more situational. It’s still so early though: the Reece version of the Dunn-Buchanan lineup has been great on offense because they have averaged 1 free throw attempt per field goal attempt, the Dante version of that lineup hasn’t attempted a single 3 (in like 11 possessions) but has made 70% of their twos, mostly from the midrange. A couple lineup constructions I’d like to see more of for experimenting purposes are:
Guard-Guard-Dunn-Bond-Groves: can Leon help the rebounding issue?
Guard-Guard-Dunn-Groves-Buchanan: can Dunn function as a secondary playmaker?
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I think the issue is defining what “good” is. To me, “good” is making the NCAA tourney and I agree that we might be good.
I believe that unless we are able to find answers to a couple weaknesses, that’s probably the ceiling unless we get very hot when we get into the tourney. I also think there’s a possibility of this team missing the tourney. Friday’s win was a good step towards the tourney.
I think the deficiencies that are going to create our ceiling are the ability to defend the post and rebound, both of which I believe will be solved eventually by the development of our young bigs but that won’t be this season, and our lack of an alpha scorer.
Just musing, but I wonder if more minutes for Bond could help partially mitigate our rebounding issue? Putting him on the floor at the wing gives us more rebounding but how much does it hurt our offense?
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We need to make Dunn-Groves work if minor isn’t playable. Because true freshman Blake is not going to be able to play 40 MPG. I think ideally we figure out a way for Minor to be serviceable and play him 6-8MPG and then another 4-6 MPG with Dunn-Groves. Get Buchanan’s minutes into the sub-30 range
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The biggest thing i see at the moment is a need to make big lineups work with either Dunn or Bond at the 3.
That will help the rebounding and lessen the need for Dante + Reece lineup minutes.
Dante only played 15 minutes against Florida despite playing pretty well. That still meant 9 minutes of overlap with Reece, which didnt go well.
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You are wrong. This team isn’t missing the tournament. Most teams that make the tournament have serious flaws. We were just spoiled from 14-19 with teams that lacked glaring weaknesses
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You might want to keep your powder dry there, fella.
First, I didn’t say they would, I said it is possible. My stance might change depending on how the team develops, but we’ll see.
Second, I’d let the season play out.
Nothing explosive about my post. Just a calm statement about you being wrong. Floor for this team is a 10 seed. If you really think they might not be a top 40 team in the country idk what to tell you. Must not watch many other games
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After watching Florida’s game with Loyola Md, I had thought that we might see Bond defending Kugel. At least, for a bit. Once again, I was wrong in my suppositions, but I would still like to see him on the floor for more than four minutes in a game like this. I found that stat in the box score a bit perplexing.
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Was just rewatching the 1H- Bond didn’t play great, but not that bad either. We looked particularly overwhelmed by their size, but not so different than the 1H in general. He was inefficient and bothered by length on offense. He really needs to add some sort of perimeter offense. I’d also like to play some game minutes at the 3, but so far, nada.
Tangent - Dante was perfect for the way they were overplaying. We really couldn’t get much in the paint, but had some close misses. He could get into the mid range, and get his shot. Still feels like we need a better way to harness that skill, than just have him shoot from the mid range.
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Must not read LRA much
It’s important that we don’t waste time on diplomacy. After all, this is serious business; lives are at stake.
I do realize that “You are wrong.” sells much better cooy than “I disagree with you.” because it describes the other person without giving away anything about the speaker. Average people eat that stuff up.
Another thought - at least in the 1H, not really scoring great at the rim (2H is a lot of Blake FTs), and not getting a ton of threes (but hitting them when we do), but we are scoring a lot more off of turnovers than we typically do. Can’t wait to see Groves join the club in the 2H… 
… 
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It’s a matter of respect. Some people respect others reasonable opinions even if they disagree and some believe they are so right that they want to attack any opinion that doesn’t mesh with theirs.
There are opinions that probably should be attacked but there aren’t a lot of people whose opinions I care about and almost all of those folks tend to be very reserved in sharing their opinions.
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His 0-60 acceleration is crazy. I thought he was under good control, but yeah, you’d like to see him be able to open up a roll to the basket for someone else or something. But if he can knock down like 45% of his midrange pull-ups, while it won’t make that an efficient shot by itself, it might draw up a help defender to start contesting that shot and create space for others.
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Chose my words specifically for that poster. In general I agree with you. But he annoys me and I knew being told he was wrong would offend him so I decided to tell him he is wrong. I mean look at him whining about being attacked when all I said was he is wrong lol I apologize for the immaturity
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This thread has gone full LRA.
Beat a tough, P6 opponent that has blown us out the only two times we’ve played it during the Bennett era, and on a neutral court……
And we’re arguing over ceilings and lineups, even a ref to Kihei in there, all because we squeaked by an opponent that has more size and athleticism than all but about four or five teams UVa will play this year.
Onto the next, fellas.
Last time we played NC A&T (November 1994), we won by 44 in a season we made an Elite 8.
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Yeah, I don’t get any doom and gloom here. This is an opponent that, based on the wide range of outcomes for this team going into the season, could have easily run us off the floor with speed and athleticism and instead, we got an early test that this team clearly passed. Florida has a decent spread of outcomes themselves this season but when fielding a full squad is definitely a team that can make the second weekend of the tournament. Playing them this early in our schedule worried me and seeing the Hoos win this one makes me feel fairly confident about our ability to hang with tournament-caliber teams earlier than expected.
Now I’m excited to be playing a couple of easier games (NC A&T is bottom 10 in both Torvik and KenPom). NC A&T doesn’t play anyone taller than 6’9" so I expect we’ll see the Hoos get out to an early lead and then see CTB playing with some different lineups (maybe smaller ones with Dunn and Bond sharing minutes, probably see more of Minor to see what he can do in spot minutes). Either way, should be a fun week ahead of Wiscy on the 20th.
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Can someone tell me why this is bad? (Especially if I use the word “discussing?”)
(Never mind - this is just the circle of life. We all like discussing UVa hoops, but we all don’t always like how other people discuss uva hoops, and then these things descend into discussions about how we discuss. And nobody likes that. So I’ll stop)
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Why don’t you let the season play out instead of insisting the team has “glaring weaknesses”? Such hypocrisy.
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I don’t have a specific definition of good. I don’t think that’s a smart way of looking at things. We don’t need to decide what this team is or will be
2 games into the season. That’s why I get so frustrated by people who view any potential flaw as existential and not something that we can and/or likely will improve upon over the next few months. I think many have forgotten that our greatest teams have had plenty of early season stinkers.
It’s a long season. I like our roster, I like our talent, I like how the pieces can work together. To me it feels much more like a 2014-2019 roster than a 2020-2023 roster. The pieces make more sense and seem to have more upside to grow. Last year we had a solid team but we had to play near perfect basketball to beat good teams. I don’t think this team will have to do that. It can play games like Friday and still beat a lot of teams. Our likely starting 5 will feature 3 sophomores and a freshman. If they can beat UF in game 2, what can they do after 2 months of playing together? It’s not like last year where we had a bunch of 5th years clearly having reached full potential.
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