Goes without saying but…must win
Still like the Hoos to play the big lineup if Cattoor gets his spot back from Nickel. Berans isn’t a great shooter and Kidd flat out doesn’t shoot from outside. Expect the Hoos to look to match not only their frontcourt but also elect to get more size on the perimeter.
Huge game for the rest of the season. Let’s go Wahoos.
For my sanity’s sake, if for no other reason.
If we lose, Imma need @spencer to have LRA go through a maintenance exercise and in doing so making LRA go down for 2 days before starting back up. To spare me from embarrassing myself.
Sounds like Cattoor is 50/50
Which means Cattoor plays. Anybody in the CBB world could climb out of a hospital bed after having been in a coma for two weeks and drop a quick 26 on UVa (6-7 from 3, but is fouled on the miss and only makes 2-3). At least that is what I am led to expect from LRA posters. And that goes with the 42 that Pedulla drops. Learned that as well. And Robbie Beran goes off with an 18, 18 and 10 (assisting aforesaid Cattoor and Pedulla) stat line making me regret ever posting his game stats as a joke on this forum. Tyler Nickel goes a perfect 5-5 from 3 as well just to add salt to the wounds. I expect to lose 107-23. That’s my reality and anybody else that wants to try to talk a different reality based on some form of objective analytics needs to get to a saner, calmer, more collegial place like The Sabre.
I have lurked here this evening, then had to cry in a corner for a while after reading the anger and despair.
What I am going to say will be unpopular, but this is how I feel right now. Obviously, this is not the team we had hoped for all summer and into the season, and that is incredibly disappointing; it sucks. But if Tony is essentially saying this is a rebuild – and I am very sympathetic to the view that this should have been a results season – perhaps we would all feel psychologically better if we accepted this and think critically about what we need to do to accelerate it. Doesn’t mean we don’t dissect the games, vent, and think about how we can win each game one at a time and learn from them.
Putting energy into who should play and how much, what rotations and starting lineups should be, how to retain our young guys (which obviously means PT), and which recruits we should focus on and target, based on who fits in our system; no more recruiting misses that have plagued us, it seems.
I am just trying to think of how we can accept and work on improving in season, then in the offseason, as opposed to post after post of “this is the end of Virginia basketball and Tony must go,” a sentiment I understand and appreciate, but disagree with. We are where we are. If Tony is essentially saying it’s a rebuild then it’s time to reduce expectations that we are anything more this season.
I am thinking, for example, that a rebuild requires continuity for sure, so how does Tony minimize this risk of losing young guys by working them in more? Idk, this is one of the discussions.
We should approach every game as though we are going to win, and what do we need to do to accomplish that…not suggesting throwing in the towel. We get an NIT bid, and try to win it. But please, God, can we have fewer “sky is falling” posts? They seem a little discouraging.
I must be an annayollop on this stuff (a reverse Pollyanna- get it?). We’ve been pantsed in any road or neutral game against any decent competition, and also ND. Given that, the board seems … normal. Like, what you’d expect from a bunch of fans of a team that’s riding the struggle bus, big time.
Life is good, but right now, UVa hoops isn’t. Which is fine! I’ll keep watching and giving my dumb takes.
Beating Tech would certainly be a welcome Good Vibes injection for the board (and, presumably, the team).
Don’t think we beat these guys (or anyone else) in a jump-shooting contest. Hope we’ve got something else cooking to attack the lane with physicality.
Rational post but you forget we are going to be worse next yeat
Your takes are never dumb, @haney, and I certainly am not suggesting people stop watching; of course, we will all watch and continue to vent frustration, critique the team, look forward to games, and just be a fan. Believe me, I share in the disappointment; I am simply talking about extreme negativity.
It just seems like shitting on Tony and the team endlessly isn’t helpful. I am not suggesting people can’t post whatever they want; I am simply suggesting accepting where we are and thinking about what needs to be done is better for the morale of the board. I hate seeing it devolve into anger and some form of despair…post after post after post.
Looking for a step forward and a win against Tech tomorrow night…Go Hoos!
I’m aware. I think things look much brighter for 2025-2026, if we can retain most of our talent and get a good recruiting class for 2025.
I am hopeful about the future; I don’t think a “rebuild” is typically done in one season, but I could be wrong about that.
Believe me, I too know this sucks and is painful to watch at the moment.
One more thing: I am not sure where we disagree. Perhaps you didn’t understand what I was trying to say? Or maybe I wasn’t clear.
Not much disagreement, I don’t think. I’m just seeing the general message board circle of life, when a team losses some bad ones. People bellyache, and then others bellyache about the bellyaching. Lather, rinse, repeat. Season it with some general anxiety about when Tony might retire. Add in a must win against hated rival, and let it sit for a few days.
I think it’s worth a distinction between a solutions orientation and a catastrophizing orientation: “we aren’t good right now, and here’s where we need to get better and here are some ideas” vs “everything is ruined for all of time and there’s no coming back.”
Mostly people are turned off from the latter. And yeah, you’d expect it … but also it sucks. And it’s fine to say it sucks. Calling out the catastrophizers reinforces some group norms, so we aren’t all dragged into the mud with them.
Agree, as Whitman said, we all contain multitudes, but I wouldn’t say the catastrophizers are a big group, unless you go with Walt’s defn. that we are all catastrophizers, in which case we are all also hopeless optimists, too.
I think next year will be the rebuilding year. This year is a “treading water” year. We don’t have the right pieces to rebuild yet.
I hope I’m proven wrong.
Yeah totally agree. It’s easy to catastrophize the catastrophizers because their catastrophizing leaves such a catastrophic mess in their wake.
I’ll stop now.