Who enjoys the sun the most?
Is Tennessee that much more talented than UVA. Who is their best player? I mean Igor is the starting 4, while he’s good that’s not someone I really fear being able to break them down.
Also, I think Dai Dai is pretty good defensively. Overall I’m relatively surprised by Dai Dai play honestly. He’s gonna be really good IMO.
True, and hoo, but I suspect our PG issues might mean we can more reasonably expect elevated TO rates to be fairly common. Certainly much more so than the kind of game iMac had last night.
Ziegler is going to be a problem for us.
Nah. Z is tiny. Perfect for Dai Dai to lock up
I agree. I think Dai Dai matches up really well with Z.
Idk, UT will play good defense but a team full of transfers from lower levels don’t really scare. Igor (Charlotte), Chaz (North Florida) etc. Saunders played a final four team and Dai Dai at K State yet were worried about those guys.
Idk why folks think this UVA team lacks talent and athleticism.
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2024/25 Virginia Men’s Hoops In-Season Thread
Hoping for good things here.
I’ll feel really good if we can keep this one interesting. Not so much concerned with dropping 2 games this week, since both will be Q1 games in the end (most likely), but I’m not going to have those same feelings if we have a performance like Wisconsin last year.
We have very little to lose this week and so much to gain
Agree. People take the fact that we don’t have many players who can beat their man off the dribble as to mean we’re unathletic but from a pure basketball standpoint this team has serious potential. Difference for both the team this year and in this game specifically is inexperience. UT starts 3 transfers however they’re all upperclassmen and have the years of general college basketball experience. That said they aren’t a particularly great shooting team. Ziegler is another very high level player that we’ll learn a lot about Dai Dai high level potential from seeing how he does.
Completely understand not going into this expecting a win but I think we can hang, especially if we clean up some of the turnovers.
Yeah, I don’t think we win, but I think we match up pretty well with the Vols and I expect a close game. They turn the ball over even more than we do and shouldn’t be an especially good outside shooting team. I don’t think they’re particularly bad at it, but I also don’t think they average 40+% on 3s for the season like they have so far.
Also, for all the concern some of us, like me, have had over our improbably good shooting vs Nova, Tenn has had 10 players attempt a 2pt shot so far this season and 8 of the 10 are shooting 60+% from 2. And #9 is at 57%. They’re collectively shooting 67% on 2s for the season and that’s also unlikely to continue all year. UVA has 2 players (Cofie and ARob) who have shot as well from 2 as Tenn is averaging as a team.
On the other hand, UVA has been astoundingly bad at offensive rebounding so far this year (#359 out of 364) whereas Tenn is genuinely good. I think we end up slightly ahead on TOs, they shoot better inside while we shoot better outside, but they end up winning by beating us on the boards. But I think it’ll be close and a “Maybe UVA is better than we thought” vibe starts circulating.
Talent: other than iMac, our talent consists of guys with relatively high recruiting rankings who haven’t yet flourished at this level, but who are also relatively young (Blake, TJP**, Dai Dai, Cofie). I’m not convinced I need to discuss Saunders in this section yet, but I look forward to him convincing me. So far, mark me down as “intrigued” by Saunders potential.
Athleticism: I think this is relative. With Reece, RD, Bond, and Elijah last year, we had one of the more impressive pure athletic rosters we’ve had in a while. This team is much less athletic than that one, but probably more skilled and a better shooting team.
Last year’s team’s major issue was not being able to stack skills. Other than Reece. The athletic guys couldn’t shoot. The shooters couldn’t do anything else besides shoot. The athletic 5 couldn’t defend in the post. The post defender 5 couldn’t do much of anything else.
This year? The major change is iMac has looked like a star. He’s expanding what he can do, and what he’s confident doing. I’d add Cofie to this, too, I guess. He can do multiple things and hopefully he stays on this list as we play the better teams.
** relatively young in college experience
I believe IMac is a huge key in this game and all games going forward against Power 5 conference’s. We shall see if he can produce his own offense without just being a spot up shooter against better defensive disciplined teams. The turnover thing is to be expected with a faster pace of play. It can and hopefully gets better as the season goes forward and the team adjusts but will be a pain point for a while.
Yes sir. Tennessee has taken advantage and beat up on inferior teams. Let’s see how they look against better competition. Again not saying I’m predicting a win but I think this will be one worth staying up for.
Last 2 games they scored a combined 195 points and only made a combined 14 3’s. Lets see what happens when the point blank range looks aren’t so readily available…
Coming to the realization that I’m decidedly not anti-pessimism but instead I’m anti-overreaction.
There’s a world where we keep it close and maybe win. More likely I think our bigs get in a bunch of foul trouble due to their physicality and their defense is able to turn us over a lot. We’ll have to show meaningful improvement from any of our recent games to keep it close. I do think we’ll be mentally a bit more resilient than last year, in part because Ron seems comfortable letting guys do their thing, taking the good with the bad. But some of the fundamentals just aren’t there quite yet. I’ll be watching and cheering and hoping to see those steps.
I always felt a big part of this season’s potential, whether with Tony or Ron at the helm, was iMac staying on the Joe Harris development curve. Harris, of course, spent his first two years as a reliable complementary scoring option with Mike Scott the alpha, but then in 2012-13 asserted himself as the new lead dog and thrived in the role (even as the team was more well rounded the following year with Malc becoming at least co-equal as the team’s go-to [the final shot at Pitt quite emblematic]).
I think it’s very early to tell if iMac is going to take that same kind of 3rd year leap now that he’s out of Reece’s shadow, but the Nova game was encouraging in that respect.
For all the great shooting, one of my favorite iMac moments was when he took his man to the hole, and scored. It was right out of a stoppage, if memory serves.
Also loved the shooting off movement off ball screens.
Too bad IMac doesn’t have a Brogdon on this team as well. That is our biggest deficiency on this team, the guy who can go and get a bucket in crunch time.
This could be a game where we find out if we have the ability to close out a close game. I’m probably more optimistic than most on this forum, but I wonder who we turn to in crunch time against a quality opponent. Perhaps Dai Dai’s size will help him in this game against Zeigler. Perhaps having five shooters on the floor can create some good spacing for him to drive.
Or maybe we just let IMac shoot!
I bet Sanchez and JWilly have pretty good idea of Igor’s strengths and weaknesses.
One other thing to consider about this game, all the weirdness. Weird time, weird location, weird gym, weird environment, weird travel, etc. Never know which teams that will favor in these early season tourneys, but it usually does
Also @JBHoo UT has played Louisville at Louisville and beat them easily, so that competition cannot be denied. Mess or not, Louisville has talent.