UVA - 12/31

[Connell62]

I realize that many have given up on this team / coach, but I'll continue to support them as long as they remain at GT. Just thought I'd pass this along.

Connected with Josh yesterday and he told me that they really grinded the team hard this week. Big focus on cleaning up the zone and transition offense (key # 1 as he called it).

I'm not sure how much it is going impact rim protection, but he is going to play more of Rodney/Javon/Jalon together, trying to keep two in the game at all times.

I asked him about Cyril getting more PT, and unfortunately, he has been stuck in Canada this week due to the travel fiasco and will miss tomorrow's game. He won't be back until late tomorrow night.

UVA is one of the best teams in the country, they could easily be a Final Four team with their mix of talent and experience. If they stay healthy, I think that they contend for the championship.

I won't be surprised if we get crushed tomorrow, but I suspect we player better than expected.

 

[AUFC]

We are built pretty well to handle Tony Bennett’s packline defense. We suck at the dribble drive and backdoor cuts it prevents, so I bet we just take volume 3s. We should get some open looks and if some combo of Deebo/Miles/Terry/Maxwell have the shooting days we know they are capable of, I could see us stealing this one.

But ultimately we are playing against one of the best coaches in the country who knows how to adjust on the fly. If we start out hot, I’d expect UVA to sag their defense a little less towards a more traditional man-to-man and force Deivon/Miles to beat them on drives to the hoop. This UVA team can score too, and of course you can always count on Kihei Clark to put up an awful game against us, then bury us with a dagger 3 with 90 seconds to go.

 

[Connell62]

We are built pretty well to handle Tony Bennett’s packline defense. We suck at the dribble drive and backdoor cuts it prevents, so I bet we just take volume 3s. We should get some open looks and if some combo of Deebo/Miles/Terry/Maxwell have the shooting days we know they are capable of, I could see us stealing this one.

But ultimately we are playing against one of the best coaches in the country who knows how to adjust on the fly. If we start out hot, I’d expect UVA to sag their defense a little less towards a more traditional man-to-man and force Deivon/Miles to beat them on drives to the hoop. This UVA team can score too, and of course you can always count on Kihei Clark to put up an awful game against us, then bury us with a dagger 3 with 90 seconds to go.

Stranger things have happened, but make no mistake, it would take a scratch, claw, fight effort to pull this one out.

Vegas line will be in the 7.5 / 8 range in favor of UVA.

 

[slugboy]

Thanks @Connell62. You probably don’t have an answer to this, but I have a couple of questions.

• In the offseason, I was hearing that we were looking at using a different offensive scheme. We’re back to what we did last year. Did we actually try to implement something else? Why’d we go back to Princeton?
• After all this time, I know what Pastner wants to do on defense. What is his plan and direction on offense—not just for this year, but what does he want our offense to look like and accomplish on a year-in-year-out basis?

 

[gtgaas]

I realize that many have given up on this team / coach, but I'll continue to support them as long as they remain at GT. Just thought I'd pass this along.

Connected with Josh yesterday and he told me that they really grinded the team hard this week. Big focus on cleaning up the zone and transition offense (key # 1 as he called it).

I'm not sure how much it is going impact rim protection, but he is going to play more of Rodney/Javon/Jalon together, trying to keep two in the game at all times.

I asked him about Cyril getting more PT, and unfortunately, he has been stuck in Canada this week due to the travel fiasco and will miss tomorrow's game. He won't be back until late tomorrow night.

UVA is one of the best teams in the country, they could easily be a Final Four team with their mix of talent and experience. If they stay healthy, I think that they contend for the championship.

I won't be surprised if we get crushed tomorrow, but I suspect we player better than expected.

Regarding Cyril - once he is back, did Josh indicate whether he would get any PT?

 

[daddee724]

Thanks @Connell62. You probably don’t have an answer to this, but I have a couple of questions.

• In the offseason, I was hearing that we were looking at using a different offensive scheme. We’re back to what we did last year. Did we actually try to implement something else? Why’d we go back to Princeton?
• After all this time, I know what Pastner wants to do on defense. What is his plan and direction on offense—not just for this year, but what does he want our offense to look like and accomplish on a year-in-year-out basis?

 

[YlJacket]

Bennet isn't going to do much differently than UNC did against our offense. Trail the guard up the lane on the downscreen, be in position to guard the drive from the top of the key and don't help off the ball side shooter. They are big enough to deal with our guards if/when they drive.

In reality our offense isn't suited to really attack a pack line D. You attack the pack line on the back side where the help is coming from. That requires quick rotations of the ball from side to side on the court - something we just don't do. Our spacing or really lack of it plays into the pack line strength. We are not going to stretch it as you need to do. Also helps if you have a post who can demand the double team from the weak side and has the ability to pass the ball back to the weak side. Rare skill I know but not anything Howard or Franklin can execute.

For us on D, playing Howard and Franklin at the same time is definitely viable as they will play two bigs or at least a sort of big at the 4 most of the time. So at least conceptually we can match up or play the zone.

The key to me (at least if we are not getting blown out) is whether Devion can stay in front of Clark. UVA runs a lot of clock and then often depends on Clark to simply make something happen toward the end of the clock. Take him out of that role and they are a lot less efficient.

 

[Connell62]

Regarding Cyril - once he is back, did Josh indicate whether he would get any PT?

He didn’t, he just said that he is going to be good for us. That led me to believe that he will continue to see limited PT this season. Especially after missing a week of practice.

 

[Connell62]

Thanks @Connell62. You probably don’t have an answer to this, but I have a couple of questions.

• In the offseason, I was hearing that we were looking at using a different offensive scheme. We’re back to what we did last year. Did we actually try to implement something else? Why’d we go back to Princeton?
• After all this time, I know what Pastner wants to do on defense. What is his plan and direction on offense—not just for this year, but what does he want our offense to look like and accomplish on a year-in-year-out basis?

Coming into the season, he wanted to play faster. That simply meant finding a good shot and taking it earlier in the shot clock and scoring more in transition. He felt we had a team of good shooters and wanted to play to that, and he felt like we had the athletes to get out and run.

Unfortunately, they’ve both been areas that we have struggled with the most. Shooting has been one of the biggest disappointments. Deebo, Miles, Lance, and even Tristan are all better shooters than they’ve shown. There have been several games where the offense has done a good job of creating open shots, we just haven’t been able to knock them down. Against Clemson, we missed open 3’s, lay-up’s, and free throws. We just didn’t perform well. Some of that is on Josh (he will tell you that), and some of it falls on the guys too. We shouldn’t be consistently losing 50/50 battles or getting crushed on the boards (even if we are smaller).

Another big challenge with the offensive system is the lack of a skilled big. We’re way behind other teams in doing what it takes to be competitive there. Without that guys, teams are playing the back-door cuts, and high-low hasn’t been an option for one reason. We don’t have anyone that we can dump it into him for an easy bucket. That causes you to live/die with perimeter shooting which is a killer to most offenses.

Josh may tweak or adjust the offense in the future, but I don’t see him going away from it entirely. The answer from my perspective is doing everything possible (NIL) to find talent in the paint and continuing to develop Cyril. He told me that Clemson’s front line was somewhere in the $175k - $250k range and the UNC front line was in the $1M range. He feels like those two are the best in the league, and that’s what we are up against.

 

[YlJacket]

Connell - do you have a feel/idea why Josh stayed with this offense when it had to be obvious to him and the other coaches that we didn't have that skilled 5 in preseason practices?

I do take your point about NIL. We need to be in the half mil range to be a middle of the pack ACC team (+/-).

 

[Connell62]

Connell - do you have a feel/idea why Josh stayed with this offense when it had to be obvious to him and the other coaches that we didn't have that skilled 5 in preseason practices?

I do take your point about NIL. We need to be in the half mil range to be a middle of the pack ACC team (+/-).

That’s a good question. When I asked him about that in the summer, his response was along the lines of that is what the guys know.

I took that to mean that while we’re relatively young, the ones that have been here have been taught Princeton, so going away from it and going back to square one almost seemed more daunting. I compare it to Paul Johnson deciding to move from the triple option to a pro-style offense.

He mentioned to the media today that they were adding some wrinkles to it, but most of the elements will remain the same.

 

[Root4GT]

I realize that many have given up on this team / coach, but I'll continue to support them as long as they remain at GT. Just thought I'd pass this along.

Connected with Josh yesterday and he told me that they really grinded the team hard this week. Big focus on cleaning up the zone and transition offense (key # 1 as he called it).

I'm not sure how much it is going impact rim protection, but he is going to play more of Rodney/Javon/Jalon together, trying to keep two in the game at all times.

I asked him about Cyril getting more PT, and unfortunately, he has been stuck in Canada this week due to the travel fiasco and will miss tomorrow's game. He won't be back until late tomorrow night.

UVA is one of the best teams in the country, they could easily be a Final Four team with their mix of talent and experience. If they stay healthy, I think that they contend for the championship.

I won't be surprised if we get crushed tomorrow, but I suspect we player better than expected.

Good info, thanks for sharing.

 

[Jacket4Life]

You need a talented center to run this offense. We haven't had one in a few years.

 

[iceeater1969]

With the NIL we are what we are = hustlers

 

[Lone Star Jacket]

Just a horrible team. Getting ugly already.

 

[Root4GT]

The offense really struggles. UVA will be tough on any offense. Ours seems to have no real purpose though. I don’t see any real solutions with the current roster.

 

[MaverickGT]

Fire everyone, raise some $ to actually compete in Division 1 and start over

 

[daddee724]

The difference in PG's hunting the paint & finding the open guys around the 3pt line. VA has had open look after open look for 3!! As much as the few peeps want to say it's our roster/players. VA isn't that much more talented than us. There is not 1 player on their team that jumps out at you from an athletic standpoint. Their PG is the difference maker, when he gets paint he finds where the help guy came from. He doesn't look to score 1st. He's honest with his limitations & and uses it as his strength, by not trying to shoot/score every trip down the floor. The other thing those guys pass up good shots for better shots to better shooters. The offense is set for them to get 3's which they are getting. What is ours designed for outside of driving & cutting into a clogged lane. Teams know we are not making extra passes

 

[Root4GT]

One can debate our talent level. My opinion is we are bottom rung ACC talent wise.

There is no debate that CJP can’t get his players to preform as a competitive ACC team. That is 100% on him. He put the roster together.

Changing out players is harder than changing out the coach. I suspect CJP has one more year

 

[daddee724]

One can debate our talent level. My opinion is we are bottom rung ACC talent wise.

There is no debate that CJP can’t get his players to preform as a competitive ACC team. That is 100% on him. He put the roster together.

Changing out players is harder than changing out the coach. I suspect CJP has one more year

Who jumps out as high level talent to you on VA roster??