Virginia vs. Tarleton State, 1900 EST (UTC -5), 2300 GMT (UTC +0), 6 Nov 2023, ACCNX

Yeah, this is a good encapsulation. It was a good test for our guys. It also seemed to result in Beeks and other guards (maybe?) guarding down low more than I would have expected. As a result, the game was this sort of odd thing, where it resembled a series of drills against an important concept, albeit executed by guys who are the right size, and decent athletes, but ultimately not very good at scoring.

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He was able to enroll because he met all of UVA’s requirements for enrollment. He was not eligible to play sports that year because he didn’t meet all NCAA clearinghouse requirements. I know we usually think of UVA’s requirements as higher but sometimes they are just different. Mamadi was one of those kids that got caught ‘in between’ American grades when he moved to the US and it caused a few issues that he resolved during his redshirt year

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Yeah, I’m not shocked a senior who played all of his previous collegiate games in a zone defense is having some issues with our more-complicated-than-most man defensive scheme. It felt like kind of a weird marriage at the time and continues to.

But hey, we needed depth down low one way or another and I can’t recall what other guys had interest in us in the portal. And he seems like a good dude - hopefully it all starts to click for him soonish.

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That’s my takeaway. Hoos needed depth. Minor is a fairly low risk pick up for a year. If he clicks great, if he doesn’t he can still be a big body to toss in and bang with Duke and UNC’s frontline and soak up some mins while saving Dunn, BB and Groves. He was never going to be a world beater, and BB was always likely to pass him on the depth chart at some point this year.

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Wasn’t Minor primarily a feed-the-post player at Merrimack? I don’t remember UVA doing that even once against Tarleton State, despite our size advantage, which was a big departure from playing with Gardner and Shedrick the past two years. Tarleton State was the type of team that Gardner would have feasted on. Curious if we’ll see passes into Blake on the block some as his game develops more this year.

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Yeah, and was the roll man in PNR a lot, too. Pretty good, too, I think. Did we run much ball screen last night? Can’t remember much

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I don’t recall seeing a lot of PNR which seems strange because I thought that was something they were working on implementing. They also could have been working a more vanilla playbook last night.

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Why is that disaster? How many top 60-70 guys have played all 4 of their eligible seasons at UVA the last 15 years? So if they aren’t going to play all 4 years here anyway, how is it disaster to use a year up when not playing that much? Why give that extra year away to another program?

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Mostly pick and pop last night. Or using 5-out principles and pick and replace (similar to popping).

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It’s unlikely that UVA would have been a #1 seed in 2018 if Devon Hall had not redshirted.

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Like you fresh?

Kinda funny. So if he shoots those at a 38% rate - good chance he misses both - maybe one at best. But we scored on 1 out of the 2 possessions. = 1.00 per possession which isn’t bad.

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I don’t think Bennett liked the scramble drill on either possession, even though we got by with one.

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We did win?

Yeah, and the expected value of each possession if he takes the shot (assuming the 38% number for convenience) is 1.14 points plus some amount for the chance of getting an offensive rebound and scoring off that. I would guess that the expected value in the late clock situation would be lower. In other words, my assumption is that it was the best shot available in each possession and he can’t pass those up.

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He actually got a lot of his points in transition oddly enough.

I was 500+ posts behind so didn’t read them.

Totally get the Gertrude complaints. Assuming he hasn’t had any physical setbacks, I’m not a fan of redshirting him at all. But the association with transfer risk to redshirting is just not true at all. Statistically it lowers the risk, at least in the immediate. Still don’t like it. I think in his case either he hits and isn’t around for a 5th year or he doesn’t in which case he probably wont’ be at UVA for 5 years. We’ll see. Not concerned at all about him leaving this year though. @DFresh11 will tell ya. His family was totally fine with redshirting if it came to that since the injury.

We’ll see how things play out…but I think Minor at least for now is in something close to Papi’s role. Situational. When the matchups are right he’ll get minutes, when it isn’t he won’t. Hope he keeps his head up and buys into it because they’ll need him.

Very curious to see Bond’s usage going forward. He played pretty much strictly as a Dunn backup last night. That won’t leave him with much of a role in most games. Will need to play very small or jumbo for him to consistently get double digit minutes. He’ll need to keep doing his thing to force the issue.

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Bond’s energy and his work on the boards will make it increasingly tough to not find a larger role for him. I could see the staff experiment with him.

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Is an injury to Reece or Dante a scenario where the EG shirt would be burned?

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It was a unique matchup in that T-State’s small lineup, with their tallest guy at 6’7" and only three guys over 200 lbs, UVA played small with no problems. Bigger opponents may see opportunities for bigger lineups. Curious Friday if we see UVA play big to give Leon a chance to match up on Kugel or Richard.

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