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Virginia's Jacari White (wrist) is OUT for today's ACC opener against Virginia Tech, per Ryan Odom.Averages 10.9 PPG.— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) December 31, 2025

HOKIES!

Yeah that was superfluous and stressed me the f out

Yeah I think this game turns on the number of players Odom can throw at it. They can be Uber aggressive in the paint and still avoid foul trouble due to the quantity of players they can run out while the Hokies can ill afford Hansberry or Gurdak getting in trouble leaving Sincere Jones and Soloman Davis as the only size after them. Crazy how fast we went from a plethora of depth at Forward to one deep.

Not sure pointing at a freshman that has not played a full season of American basketball is a good example of failing to develop. Expectations on Avdalas were high because of how he played in Europe but let's be clear on a few things there.

Avdalas was in the top Greek League. That league is probably the 7th or 8th best league in Europe. I would put Euroleague, France LNB Pro A, Bundesliga ProA, Spains Liga ACB, Turkey's BSL, Russia's VTB, Italy's Serie A and even the Balkans ABA well above the Greek A1. Throw in Israel and the Netherlands Leagues as on par or better than the Greek A1 as well.

Now getting down to style of play between Europe and the NCAA. NCAA has a narrower paint area and teams clog it much more than you see in Euro basketball so Neo is having to adjust his approach to taking the ball to the rim much more than he had to overseas. In a large number of our games you have seen him start a drive only to hesitate when getting into a clogged paint. Thats not something that will correct itself in a handful of games.

Another difference for Neo to adjust to is the basketball itself. Europe uses a Size 7 ball that tends to be over 30 inches in diameter and has 12 panels. The NCAA uses a Size 7 ball that is strictly regulated at 29.5" and only has 8 panels.

As for Neo's defense, this is likely the first time Neo is being asked to play consistent man-to-man. Most Euro teams use a variety of zone defenses and rarely play man-to-man defense. Another aspect of this that probably affects Neo offensively is that in Europe, defenders using hands/arms on a player is called a defensive foul much more frequently so its discouraged by coaches there and not something Neo would be used to dealing with trying to get to the rim. Neo is used to his first step speed getting him past a defender and the defender sagging off to avoid being called for a foul but that isn't how NCAA officiating calls games here.

Thats alot to adjust to in a short window so not surprising that Neo has had ups and downs.

My bigger concern with Young and Staff is with post players developing which was why the return of Chester Frazier was such an enormous plus. Give Frazier time and Gurdak will look more and more like Hansberry as opposed to how we saw the development of Wessler not happen in previous years. The forwards were only good under Young while Frazier was here or when Young got lucky in the portal to get a guy developed by someone else ( Mutts/Aluma). Look at Lawal before injury. He averaged 7 rpg last year and this season was at 10.3 rpg after just 6 months working with Frazier. He has positioned himself much better in the paint this season rather than just trying to rely on his athleticism and it has shown.

Yeah, as much as I'd love to have an elite team, we ain't got one. I do believe that with all the pieces together at once and functioning well we can be good, though. I like the scrappy OT play, whether we should have been there or not, and I really like the players, so I'm hoping for a couple of upsets and otherwise just a tough out for anyone we play from here on. A team I can root for and be excited by, win or lose.

Man, those are some hard debbie-downer meds.

I don't disagree that it's a shift but the shift is more the rest of the party doing it because it has happened more than just that end scene. In season 4 Eleven destroyed an entire helicopter with soldiers in it when she escaped from Nina and got her powers back, Hopper took out several when they took the one guy captive, and eleven snapped one of their necks when she was infiltrating the base in the upside down, and hopper took out a couple in the lab too.

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The expert marksman is the same girl that uses her left eye shooting right handed in season 1.

I also didn't like them just killing soldiers in the end. Seemed like a significant tone shift.

The Portal giveth, the Portal taketh