Memphis looked HORRIBLE against Nova. Worse than we looked against Wisconsin. The score doesn’t tell the story on how much of a beat down that was. Granted it was 1 game but still I can’t get that out of my head.
I’m almost happy with what happened against Northeastern in the hopes that it will be a wake up call and we’ll come out ready to play tomorrow.
No idea what to expect, though. Weirdly late to be having our first road game.
The Wisconsin loss helped get us out of BM/sides… maybe Northeastern will get them more attune to the backdoor cut and better screens to get iMac open.
I’ll be watching closely for our ability to manufacture looks from three. Memphis is a team that gives up a lot of threes, but so was Northeastern.
Quinerly is 25 years old and playing college basketball. Will be interesting to see Eli guard him who is 7 years younger.
Btw Eli doesn’t turn 19 until April. Really young in today’s basketball.
Holy crap, he really is 25. I remember his recruitment well. I feel old, suddenly.
Dunn turns 21 on Jan 1. I forgot he did a year of post-grad before UVA.
Yeah I can’t find any reliable age data. Best I found was Real GM site that’s missing a ton of data and only allows you to sort when filtering by starting letter of last name.
But Eli is 5th youngest in the ACC right now by eyeballing it. Remind yourself that this kid didn’t play at all last year as well.
Gonna be a special one.
I am impressed with his lack of fear as a first year. Normally, Tony has them so cowed by a “bad shot” they just don’t shoot at all. He is not scared to take an open look and not scared to go create an open look.
Baseball’s draft model has been giving bonus credit to younger prospects, so if a guy is still 17 or just turned 18 at the time of the draft, that’s worth about a round and a half bump from a HS kid who is already 19 at draft time.
I’m guessing that the trend to hold kids back a grade at some point during their primary school years so they can be bigger and more mature than their classmates might start to reverse.
Freakonomics was published in 2005 and the chapter in the book highlighting the German youth soccer player development advantages of birth date is now 18 years old, so the movement is fully baked into the youth sports ecosystem in the US and pro scouts have been accounting for it when comparing differences in performance.
NBA teams aren’t falling for the Shabazz Mohammed trick as much anymore.
It takes a mature freshman to not be afraid to take a good shot as often as they are there. Tony never benched a guy for taking some good shots and knocking them down. He’ll bench a guy for being listless or out of position on defense no matter how much he’s scored.
Yep, it’s hard for a true first year to understand and internalize “good shot” without overthinking it. Also, Tony doesn’t tend to recruit gunners who are not team first guys.
Some of the odds seems stacked against us a bit, but I don’t care. I’m not impressed with Memphis and I think if you force them to be disciplined and perform in the half court, I don’t believe they can do it. The biggest issue we’re facing tomorrow is can we put the ball in the hoop enough to win. I think if we go over 60, we win.
Now watch Memphis score 80 and we take an ugly L lol
And here we are, with a very young team, and one of our advantages going in to this game is discipline.
Chris Graham discusses the Northeastern game then previews the Memphis game. Specifically speaks about the Ryan Dunn and Reece Beekman defensive assignments
Beeks will be matched up defensively with Quinerly who averages 14 ppg but Beeks only allows his man a little over 5 ppg. And the dude Dunn will be matched with averages about 20 ppg but Dunn only allows his man a little over 3 ppg. That’s your ball game.
Plenty of pro scouts will be in Memphis just to see those two matchups if nothing else.
Old roster for sure. Would’ve been even older if they had been successful getting DeAndre Williams an extra year (he’s 27) lol. I think Penny’s two sons and Dandridge are only non-transfers that play legit minutes. Dandridge is physically strong. Get him in foul trouble and they have nothing behind him though.
They also didn’t look great against a mediocre VCU team (Dandridge got in foul trouble), but pulled it out anyway in a tough environment. Quinerly if memory serves (I was at that game) came through with the plays at the end to get the W in OT. Caleb Mills (FSU transfer who once was a Houston transfer we wanted back then) was clutch too.
Before I looked at their lineup data, I thought Rohde would be on Jones a bunch, but they don’t play a ton of Jourdain-Dandridge minutes (together for ~25 out of 74 possessions in the Clemson game). Jones with Jourdain or Dandridge has been a more common frontcourt pairing in their last three games, with a fair amount of Walton-Jones in there too (especially in the Clemson game).
Huge game tonight. LFG.