Well I don't think anyone was predicting a 22 point loss to the worst team in the league in the tournament to be the finishing blow on our year when we began ACC play, but here we are.
Unfortunate ending but it was still a year with some promise where you can see the potential going forward.
Looking forward to the future of this program. Our better years are certainly ahead of us.
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I don't think UNC is the worst team in the ACC, I think that is Wake Forest. UNC is certainly the most underperforming in the regular season though.
Young teams have a hard time with adversity. When most of your scoring is coming from freshman, you're bound to have bouts of inconsistency.
Overall, I think the season went better than I thought it would, but totally understand everyone's frustration with how the season ended. Hopefully they will learn and move forward. Feel pretty good about the next few years. Will feel better if Young can get taller recruits
I watched maybe 2-3 games in their entirety this year.
Sadly, I can't see watching any more than that next year. I like Young, but this season stopped any momentum this program had in its tracks. The "young team" excuse got old about halfway through
I understand your frustration, but it wasn't all that bad given the circumstances. CMY had to fill a roster out without being able to recruit so in hindsight what he accomplished what pretty damn good. Tune in next year, you might be quite surprised.
I'd even say it was way better than anyone had any right to expect given the circumstances.
Whatever momentum this program had was stopped dead in its tracks very soon after last season ended and had little (or nothing even) to do with Mike young or the team as we know it now 🤷♂️
I came out of this game the opposite: really really pumped for the 2020-2021 version of this team. We return basically everyone who touched the court for us this year, and it wasn't ALL bad. We lost some heartbreakers, yeah, but we were competitive in most games, beat Michigan State in Maui, and won 7 ACC games. The grind of 20 ACC games was clearly a lot for this team to handle, as was the big lights of an ACC tournament game against UNC. Remember, most years, that game would be against a bad BC / WF / etc. team.
You have to remember, most programs can't afford to compete for deep tournament runs every year after losing so much like we did last year. We're not Duke or Kentucky and never will be. But I really think we can flip our ACC record and go 13-7 next year, which puts us in the dance again.
Proud of the program, and I think we have a lot of fun moments ahead with Coach Young.
I wouldn't be surprised if Nolley is playing ball somewhere in Europe next year.
This team could be better next year, and the record could actually be worse because of the schedule. The ACC in general will be tougher, and the OOC schedule has nowhere to go but up. I think you're looking at another miserable year next year. Fans are going to need to be patient
Not to shit all over your cornflakes, but you do realize we're the 2nd youngest team in NCAA? And 3 of our contributors were supposed to be seniors in HIGH SCHOOL this year (that's all year long, not just early in the season when the excuse was apparently OK with you). Add to that 2 redshirt FR in Nolley and Radford (who in my humble opinion outperformed Nolley during ACC play). Top that with Bede and Horne who will come back as Seniors next year and I think your argument is fairly weak.
Mike Young is the future and I am beyond excited about this team.
I get that, and it definitely isn't Mike Young's fault, but I'm so tired of hearing that. It seems like we are constantly the youngest team in football and basketball. Then once we finally get to the point of building experience and depth we lose it all because of some combination of off field behavior/legal issues, injuries, and not being able to convince players to stay an extra year.
Just last year we went to the Sweet 16 with quite a few seniors and lost a close game to the top ranked Duke team.
I maybe watched double, but what I saw was a young team learning how to play as a team at the next level. And still, as bad as the ACC record was we could have easily squeezed out another 5-6 wins had a couple plays in each game gone our way. Tough year. Next year looks promising.
Sounds like you watched the wrong 2-3 games lol. I was more excited watching the basketball team than our football team early on
What's the email to cancel my TKP subscription?
9 downvotes for sharing my opinion of the current state of Hokie sports?
I don't throw good money after bad, just like most Hokie alum don't. Peace ya'll
Thin skin, my dude. I think the downvotes are disagreements with your assessment of the team and it's trajectory into next year. Like you said, you only watched 2-3 games; a lot of us watched most of the 32. There's a lot of good going on, if you can look at it through relativity.
...don't downvote opinions. Nothing he said was offensive or against community guidelines. Make your disagreement in the comments.
I'm with you Nit. No reason for DV here. If you think about it these DVs are a reflection of society today.
That being said I hope for more developed team next year. Who is coming in?
Uh, if I'm not mistaken, you pay money for the content provided by the staff, not whether or not internet strangers agree with you about your assessment of Hokie sports.
Always great to wake up to losing a customer because of an internet disagreement. For any of y'all that are frustrated, I'm an order of magnitude more frustrated. And there's going to be some changes soon.
Maybe you need a downvote list. Not how many downvotes I get; but how many I give. If I hit a certain level, I can't downvote for a while. Or maybe just the list would be a deterrent. Nobody wants to be the worst voter on the site. At least I hope no one does.
Downvotes aren't really the problem though. AZHokie has 12K legs and wasn't going to be reprimanded or banned or any other tangible effect from a single ill-conceived post. It seems that downvotes are taken as an attack rather than moderation where the poster takes a second to reconsider the post and how it's being received.
Honestly after this and yesterday's discussion, I think the present form of community moderation doesn't work at this point. Maybe it makes sense to eliminate downvotes completely and have posters reply/debate as an attempt at moderation with the ability to report egregious violations to an official moderator.
I agree. As well intended as the turkey leg voting system is for community self-moderation, I think people are associating their worth as a poster and value of their posts with the number of legs they receive. Posts that go green tend to get excessive upvotes because they are green, downvoted posts accumulate excessive downvotes, and it does feel almost an attack when someone is downvoted without clearly violating some community guideline.
I would hope that people aren't taking it too seriously. My only concern over TLs (outside of my extremely tongue in cheek self serving threads that I created when I took over 1st and passed 100k on the big board, which nobody should have ever taken seriously) is that the way the policies are set up, if we have a mindset where downvoting opinions, especially that of new people, are accepted, we might inadvertently community-ban an otherwise great new poster for nothing more than sharing the wrong opinion at the wrong time.
yeah, some of the regulars here definitely get the benefit of the doubt more than people who are infrequent or new. I don't think i've ever not upvoted Leonard, for instance.
Yep, and if you run folks off, you turn into...that other board. With about a dozen posters shouting down everyone else and dominating the discussion. Yawn.
Also a thin line between people not happy with an internet down vote being catered to and the people doing the down voting for a disagreement. Tough to deal with.
you've been around long enough to know the downvote gang is out after a loss. your comment is now at zero anyhow.
I downvoted and reset after thinking better of it. It is one thing to have a negative opinion. It is another to be so drastic in that opinion after admitting you only consumed a small sample size and having no intention to do any different next year. We played competitive basketball this year with a completely new team after Buzz left. What exactly would pull you back in?
You have to have a little bit of insight, dude.
You had a pretty terrible take...basically, you stated that based on watching 10% of Mike Young's first season, you have determined that there's little to look forward to going ahead. This is despite the fact that without MY convincing Bede and Nolley to stay and putting together some last-minute pieces he literally would not have had enough players to make a functional Roster.
This year was a wash and was always going to be. Certainly, there were things that could have been better, especially in ACC play and was hoping to see more development from Bede and Alleyne.
As for momentum, MY has already done much better in Recruiting than nearly anyone could have expected at this point. There is certainly reason to believe this will be a better team next year and the year after that.
Whether your comment was worthy of X or Y number of downvotes is up for others to decide (FWIW I didn't DV) but if you're going to come in with hard takes like this with limited to no factual backup, people are going to be unlikely to respond positively.
The goal is to add intelligent discourse. You completely ignored all context. Do better.
this doesn't help anything either, fwiw
I'm not going to downvote your opinion, but what did you really expect? At least 2 of our kids (and yes, I am using the term kids) should have been seniors in high school this year. Brent took most of the recruits with him and CMY had to scramble to even put a competitive team on the court. This was a young team and young teams, without McD's All Americans, will struggle. Finishing at .500 was about what I expected. We had some good wins on the season, too (MSU, early ACC play.)
I would just like to point out that young teams WITH McDs all americans struggle too. Calipari has had some stellar young teams that didn't win it all because they struggled when it mattered. Looking at the last 10 champions, most were upperclass heavy teams. Duke and UK stand out but they still had upperclassmen that were leaders on the team.
Getting hung up on 'young team' as an 'excuse' from someone who admittedly only watched 2-3 games is a remarkably bad take. There are some cases where explanation != excuse and this is demonstrably one of those cases when you look at how young we really are relative to the entire country, not just the ACC.
Congrats on your free 4-6 hours next year. Use them wisely!
I think if you're unable to maintain the idea that things are going to get better when our offense got carried by one kid that was supposed to be a high school senior this year and another that had to be the most improved player in the league and is a R-Fr (Radford), then that's more of a you thing than a Tech Basketball thing. If you can't see yourself watching this team next year, then I'll also assume you were one of the fans that acted like we didn't even have a basketball program before Buzz. This season was frustrating and we definitely lost games we should have won, but remember what our expectations were coming into this thing.
Bad take man. ESPECIALLY after saying you only watched 2 or 3 whole games. We have high school seniors playing for us. The others are freshmen. New coach, new offense, new defense in the ACC. Brent stopped any momentum this season had going for it when he left us hanging high and dry. Young did nothing but, bust his ass and hobble together an amazing group of kids that will no doubt be able to play with anyone once they figure out the level of play in the ACC after skipping their senior years in high school for some. Please remember this post here next season when you are wanting to cheer for this team then.
I feel the exact opposite
Why does the "young team " excuse get old halfway through ? About halfway through is where it actually started to show. We had young guys hit walls (Nolley in particular) plus teams learned how to defend us and our kids and coaches didn't quite have an answer most of the time. As gobble says down below... we overshot expectations of this year. I think people saw the early wins (Mich St) and thought we were better than we really were. I don't know exactly where the program goes , but I though CMY did a great job of putting a respectable product on the floor this season and seems to have even higher level recruits coming.
because the team gets older every game, duh!
Now being serious, I agree with you. I think the early season successes made a few folks downplay the obstacle that is inexperience. Once the level of competition picked up and the legs started to tire, the youth started to show in the mental side and mistakes increased and shots started to clang and the L's started to build. The players and coach learned a lot this season and will be better for it. If CMY can land or develop a player to attack the rim and a big that can play with his back to the basket I think you will see 5-6 more wins next season.
I agree with the young team take because I think the "young team" explanation loses its excuse about halfway through the season, regardless of the sport. That's just my opinion, and I don't expect others to understand.
We started the season very young, allowed our pre-season expectations to get out of hand after the Michigan St. win, and then things started to fall apart. My personal interest waned once the ACC slide started (mostly because of other personal commitments) and also because we were circling around where we were supposed to be as a program in the standings. That said, the team learned a lot, kept most games close at least at the end, and still competed every night out. Am I happy with the record? Hell no, and nobody should be. Do we have a lot to look forward to for the next couple years? Absolutely.
This was expected to be a tough year to stomach, and it was. Next year we should all expect more all around.
I think there's a difference between "this team is building chemistry" and "this team is young". I don't understand how the team gets less young relative to everyone else just because they've played 16 games together.
Experience doesn't help with strength and conditioning. Also, there's "a lot of normal freshman" young and there is "3 of our players should still be playing high school ball" young.
Young doesn't just mean experience, it also means physical development.
Cannot wait to see these kids with a season of off season conditioning. Really looked like their legs were tired as the season wore on.
Just curious about something. How can you make a statement on how something is trending when you only observed 6%-9% of it? I'm not even talking about basketball here. I'm talking about anything.
Let's see, 9% of the way through the war in the Pacific, Japan was wrapping up the conquest of the Luzon, less Corregidor, just sank the last British capital ships in the Pacific in the carrier Hermes and cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire. The American fleet consisted of maybe 4 battleships, and the carrier Saratoga had just eaten a torpedo.
Clearly, Japan won, right?
You mean how every national survey observes data and extrapolates it to the entire population?
Performance trends are not the same as opinion trends.
Population statistic modeling attempts to take a cross section of popular opinions, which are much less subject to change than performance trends.
Two weeks ago I wouldn't have predicted that but going into today, I wasn't going to be surprised by a 22 point loss.
Hokies need to get to the damn rim when 3s aren't falling, which has been often the second half of ACC play. Bede needs to shoot and be aggressive, Nolley needs to protect the ball and stop taking ill-advised shots, and other guys need to take it to the hoop rather than throw up bullshit 3s.
This team next year has some great potential and talent, but they've got to find different offensive options.
I was surprised with what CMY did this year, young group that seems to have put in a good foundation for this team to grow on. CMY has a full recruiting cycle this year, looking forward to what he can do with it. I will be tuning in next year when they take the court.
Just finished the game. Two observations:
1. The free throw discrepancy was 21-5 up until very late in the game. You absolutely cannot compete in a D-1 basketball game when that is the case (see the Duke game in Cameron and see the Louisville game). I absolutely hate the ACC for reasons like this.
2. Jalen Cone is going to be an absolute star! He had Cole Anthony turned around so much he looked like a drunk chicken trying to find some place to lay down. On top of that he played some really good defense against a first round draft pick at PG. He's got to get some pre-season All-ACC love before the 2020-21 season begins.
Overall, I'm not too disappointed in how the season went down. We saw some really awesome moments along with things we all expected. The next couple of seasons are going to be a lot of fun!
I agree on Cone, he's gonna be instrumental in breaking down the defenses, collapsing them and allowing for kick outs, part of the free throw issues stem from how much we shoot from outside and don't get into the paint enough, jump shooting teams are going to shoot fewer free throws.
Cone is going to be making a lot of his opponents look really silly very soon.
Agree with everything but don't think anyone gets dog walked. We've got two four stars coming in plus this solid core. Kabongo comes back and Aluma replaces Johnson as you said. That's a solid group with guys spaced out among classes, no need to go get anyone else
We need size and have two 4-star guards already in the wings. We have a redundant roster right now.
Radford isn't on scholarship?
He is on scholarship, and he was last year as well.
The thing was that Radford's status was quite the mystery last season. He basically appeared on the camp roster and wasn't really discussed by the coaching staff.
More to his story came out this year - he was and is on scholarship, he academic red-shirted, he was a completely off-the radar recruit... well-known prep player in New Orleans area who didn't project as a major college prospect in terms of size (6'1 175) or ability (shooting range = 15 feet). Recruited as an effort guy because we had open scholarships. Spent his redshirt year working his tail off, gained 20lb and maintained his energy and aggressiveness. Now that he's seeing regular time on the court his footwork, positioning, spacing, and eventually jump shot will make even bigger improvements.
If Radford can develop a 3 point shot, he is going to be heck to cover for a defense.
As he should - I think after the Michigan State game he peaked on The Athletic's draft big board - and even then he was only in the 60s-70s. My worry with any athlete is always going to be the transfer portal, but if he didn't leave after all the bullshit his freshman season I can't see him leaving now. He could really building something special here.
I think getting Cone, Ojiako, and Allyene a full year in the offseason + the two signees next year could be a strong shooting team. Get one big who can function for 24+ minutes a game and you're set (I think that is Ojiako in the future, just not next year).
Totally agree, but just wanted to point out:
CMY busted his fucking tail to put that roster in place late. Deserves a ton of credit for that IMO.
UNC is arguably the best 14th seed in the ACC tourney, ever. Tough draw. If I'm a bubble team, I'm nervous about what Carolina's gonna do in this tournament.
UNC when they first played us were missing two of their best players. Since then they have gotten healthy and started winning. They are dangerous.
And the countdown to September 5th begins...
The team was young and had no big's to speak of. Once teams figured out they were a shooting team, it was basically a wrap, but they do have potential going forward.
It's already been said, but this first year of CMY ball went better than Buzz's first year. I think the disappointment comes from how the team started and how it finished. Nolley needs to come back for one more year and Bede HAS to develop into some kind of consistent scoring threat. There... I think got everything I wanted to say.
NIT or CBI?? Need some thing for post season.
I think this team needs the off season more than the extra games/practice. They are just young and tired. I don't think we gain anything from playing a mid-major or low-major for a few games.
We don't really have the resume to be an NIT team this year and any other tournament we could play in would be a money losing venture (pay to play, virtually no chance of making that money back). Given the current push to remind everyone how much money the AD doesn't have, it doesn't seem like the best idea to intentionally lose more to pay to be in a tournament this year.
What push? Do you mean message board discussion?
... yeah and the $$$$$$ being dropped right now at the CID project, Merryman and Bowman. Plus the concepts I've seen in the A/E drafts for remake of Cassell are impressive.
Extremely unfortunate we had to play UNC in the first round. I honestly would not be surprised in the least to see them win the ACC tournament. They were projected to do well this year before a barrage of injuries completely derailed their regular season, and they even managed to finish the season 3-1 despite being stuck to the 14th seed. Now they get a fresh start in the ACC tournament with all of those injuries now healthy and win their first game by 22. I feel bad for anyone who has to play them.
This certainly aged well.
For me, the dude who is a total winner and a junk yard dog to boot is Cattoor. Some on the D he's played last few weeks (the post D againt Brooks last night on a few possessinons), hustle plays, plus the traffic rebounding and contested 3's... Talk about doing anything to help your team win.
Probably my second fav player after Radford. His scrapping for the ball never gets old.
A real gym rat.
If UNC was the worst team in the conference and they just curb stomped us wouldn't that make us the worst team in the conference?🤔
As long as Danny Manning is at Wake they are the worst team in the conference by default.
.500 is better than I expected coming into the season (and that win over MSU isn't nothing). Disappointing finish, but I am really looking forward to what this team can do with experience plus a real offseason.
I saw them in person beat MSU in Maui. I also saw a top 5 Dayton team knock down uncontested 3's and kill this team on the boards. I think Young did a great job this year, considering. Kabongo got some burn as a TF on our best team in decades, and he didn't play. Cone improved as the year went on, and with everyone back and a full roster, I think the future is bright. I think Young will be fine- get us in the dance more often than not type of coach once he gets his guys in here.
They've done that to a lot of teams and will continue to do so for a few more weeks
A season-long injury will do that, yes.
I think you read this wrong - like I did the first time.
I think he's saying that Kabongo could have helped this year, since he played some last year despite the talent on the team, and it's unfortunate that he was hurt and couldn't contribute.
Yes, thank you.
Personal opinion....
This team needs conditioning, badly. They have talent, they have plenty of it, but they had freshmen legs and freshmen conditioning. They were already hitting a bit of a wall early on in ACC play, and when they had that 2OT slugfest against UNC, that sucked the rest of the energy out of them. From that game on, their shots stopped falling, they looked sluggish and slow on defensive rotations, and the number of reach in fouls they committed skyrocketed. All are signs of a tired team. They got a little energy back after winter break, but then they had the 3OT loss to Miami and that pretty much was the end of that. 1-5 the rest of the way with most of the losses coming by 15+.
I know Coach Young downplayed this angle early, but, at least in my opinion, there's too much evidence pointing to this being the case for it to be ignored. The good thing is, they now have a full year of training ahead of them so they can be ready for next season.
Agreed. A lot of suicide running and free throw shooting would be in line.
There has to still be some people around who went through the Buzz Williams boot camp to begin each year. We need to keep doing something like that going forward. The hell those players put themselves through in the summer gave them a little extra toward the end of the year that they could tap into that other teams couldn't.
Interested to see if there is any attempt to do something similar with the new regime
Yep. Conditioning hard and having that extra bit of gas can actually win a few extra games on that alone. I think we will get there.
Good point and interesting to think about. If there are any health and nutrition experts around, I have a question regarding this. Would cardio conditioning translate to improvement months later if that same intensity isnt maintained? Or, would teams be better off focusing on strength training so that rubber leg syndrome isnt a problem? Obviously they will do both but how do you split the energy?
I played some in the past and cardio was definitely above strength training. If you can't breath and your body isn't getting the oxygen it needs the muscle work is not going to carry you through that.
I loved running the suicides since it got me in shape fast for basketball season.
I should downvote this because no one should ever love running suicides.
We already had a subthread about not downvoting opinions here.
That said, I had the same thought.
It depends, if there is an ice cold beer at the end of the suicides. I would enjoy that. And I have run my share of suicides and had my share of beers.
To each his own...
When I was running suicides, it sucked the first two days, but by the third and fourth day, it made noticeable difference. Come game time, we weren't sucking air and we thrived on fast break opportunities.
If Bamisile/Maddox give us the ability to get to the basket or if Radford can develop a drive and kick game, this team can quickly improve next year. Besides Radford getting the ball at the top of the key and then driving left, we had almost no real offensive threat outside of the plays we had drawn up for 3's coming off of screens. Early in the year, we got a lot more 3's off of driving and kicking from Bede, but then people realized he wasn't a huge offensive threat and started playing off of him, limiting those opportunites. If Bamisile, Maddox, or Radford can make teams have to help off to protect the rim a little more, then those spot up opportunites for Catoor and Cone can really take our offense to another level.
Next Year's Projected Roster
Seniors:
PG Bede
PF Horne
PF Payne (WO)
Juniors:
PF Aluma
SG Wilkins
SG Palmer (WO)
Sophs:
PF Ojiako
PG Cone
SG Cattoor
SG Radford
SG Alleyne
SG Kabongo
SF Nolley
Freshmen:
SG Bamisile
SG Maddox
If these sophomores stay through their senior years, they will form a nucleus that can take the Hokies deep.
I had forgot all about Kabongo...team is going to be loaded
That will be an All-American-Name team.
I'd list Kabongo, Cone, and Basimile as Combo Guards as they are all capable of playing point guard or shooting guard. (maybe even Cone as SG and Basimile as a PG). Also Wilkins is much more a SF compared to the other guards, and when you think about the rotation this year, he was playing the 4 quite a bit.
PG (1) - Bede
CG (3) - Kabongo, Cone, Basimile
SG (4) - Radford, Alleyne, Cattoor, Maddox
SF (2) - Wilkins, Nolley
PF (3) - Horne, Aluma, Ojiako
Total (13)
CMY stated in a very early interview that Nolley is a 3 in his offense and that he would play the 4 out of pure necessity. I think we'll see Horne regularly in the 4 with Ojiako and Aluma playing the 5 so that Nolley can occupy the 3 spot on a more regular basis.
Kinda strange that our tallest regular player is a small forward.
Cone is a combo guard offensively, but he cannot guard a 2 or a 3 with that height difference.
Chatter on free side of 247 (Chris Arvin) is that at least 2 of current non-seniors will be leaving. Hence the numerous offers staff has out.
I'd like to land N'Guessan if we do have an opening.
*cue up Dan Lebatard Show Reckless Speculation music*
My guess is one is people think Nolley is NBA bound. He won't be drafted. If he is, it'll be late and he won't make a roster and will be in the G-League. His abilities are not polished enough right now to be an NBA player. Now if he wants to get paid to develop his skills in the G-League as opposed to getting zero dollars in college, that's his decision to make and its not a "bad" one. There's some merit to going that route. The G-League is getting better and better at putting guys in the league after a couple of years.
The other guy imo would be Wilkins. He and CMY don't seem like a fit. Wilkins had a bigger role and was more effective under Buzz than he was this year under CMY.
This concludes Reckless Speculation which was based on nothing aka, going Stugotz.
My reckless speculation would include Bede. He is not an ACC PG, unless he learns to score. We had no choice this year because we needed his leadership and we did not have anyone better. Next year I think both Cone and Cattoor and maybe Bamisile or Maddox will be better options. Unless I misjudge CMY, I don't think he will run Bede off; but he will be honest that his minutes will be significantly reduced.
I agree. I thought Cone sat a lot in the first half of games because he is not strong enough to play a complete game yet and was saved for the 2nd half.
I think saying Bede isn't an ACC level PG is a tad bit harsh. And I say this as someone who routinely would point out instances where Bede's play was hurting us in games. He was fine last year for us (though he had some struggles). The difference was he had a lot better players around him. He can play at this level, but he doesn't have the skillset to do what was asked of him this year; a starter where you're controlling the offense. His total lack of scoring ability makes it almost impossible for him to do that. Combine that with the fact that he was out there with a lot of other guys who couldn't get their own shot (whether thru inexperience and/or lack of talent), it really put us in a bad spot most games (ie if we don't hit 3s, we aren't winning because we literally can't do anything else).
TLDR; Bede is an ACC level player. He's probably not ACC level starter, especially one that asked to carry a heavy load.
I agree Bede would be an acceptable sub; but we need a PG that contributes to the score to win consistently in the ACC.
If you struggle with your shot, which he does and you struggle driving down the lane and pick up your dribble, which he does. He is not an ACC level starting point guard. Last year he was surrounded by outstanding players that had the ability to help him with his deficiencies. He was also JR's back up until JR got injured. His play diminished as the season went on, because teams were forcing him into uncomfortable situations. If you want to say #3 is an ACC level back up, so be it.
Hot Take: Kabongo and Wilkins are gone. Season ending injury and long recovery don't make for ACC level guard. Watching him warmup last year he was struggling with his three point shot and there were times it felt like he was getting the PWO treatment of well we're up by a ton lets see if we can get him a bucket. As for Wilkins, we saw his playing time drop significantly as the season wore on. He was passed by more dynamic and skilled freshman. Personally I don't feel like I saw the same energy that I saw from him his freshman year when he was diving on the ground to steal the ball from duke.
ironically Wilkins got a lot more run late in the season as Nolley slumped. His role undoubtedly would be bigger without Nolley on the team, should Nolley choose to go pro. Wilkins was also putting a ton of effort.. just seemed more active and energetic these past few games compared to earlier in the year when he seemed to have lead in his shoes... he was really getting into his screens, moving without the ball fighting in the lane on D, and so forth.
...thank goodness we're a football school!!!!
🏈
I am cautiously optimistic. It was a better year 1 than I was expecting. It will be interesting to see how Nolley and Cone develop, if Radford can work on an outside shot and if Bede can get better offensively in his last year.
So we finished about where I expected us to. The highs this year were pretty high and when this team is on they are fun to watch. We are missing some parts to a completed puzzle though. The dudes we have on the bench that didn't play and those coming in next year are definitely some of the pieces, although I feel like we still are going to need more.
While the end of the season was a disappointment, I'm still very proud of this team and I consider this season a success. Didn't have a losing record, started very strong and showed that we can compete with anybody. Another year of practice and S&C and just being together will make us much better next season. I'm excited for what the future holds.
PS- I'm now fully dipped y'all!! 🦃🦃
Next year will definitely be crowded for minutes so I do not envy CMY for having to figure out his best lineup based on player value, natural progression, and on-court leadership.
If Nolley returns, IMO this seems to be the best projected starting rotation with Bede/Cone being more of a platoon based on player value (PER) and defensive contributions on a game by game basis:
25+ Minute "Starters"
G - Bede - 12.3 PER
G - Radford - 24.8 PER
G - Cattoor - 16.0 PER
G/F - Nolley - 16.0 PER
F/C - Ojiako - 16.3 PER
10-20+ Minute "First off the bench backups"
G - Cone - 13.9 PER
G - Alleyne - 12.5 PER
G - Kabongo - 10.3 PER (based on his 2018-19 limited role, <5 min/game)
F - Horne - 11.9 PER
F - Aluma 18.2 PER (from the 2018-19 Wofford season)
G - Wilkins - 16.2 PER
Wait and see incoming Freshman
G - Bamisile
G - Maddox
Also, projecting Horne to take on a more limited role as Nolley's backup rather than a consistent starter with Aluma entering the mix will as well as what Kabongo looks like coming back from injury and his ability to fit into the rotation will definitely be interesting.
My biggest takeaway from all of this was just how far and away Tyrese Radford measurably impacts the game compared to the rest of the team. His progression as a potential mini-Draymond Green is my favorite subplot going into next season.