All Hokie, All the Time. Period. Presented by First Bank & Trust Company

39hokies

3
114
Posts
0
Threads
91
Likes
Member since: November 20, 2022

Posting History (114)

If you like the photo that's fine, I just happen to think it's ridiculous,

and I think most agree when they think of a basketball team, they think of the players and 3 - 5 coaches and a couple managers, and a trainer. I know bureaucracy at any entity that receives a dime of taxpayer money has explode to absurd amounts, and this photo is a perfect example of how we have grown the bureaucracy around colleges and college sports so much, that the actual players seem like a complete afterthought. Even NBA teams that are worth billions don't have 26 staff members in the team photos.

A 13 player basketball team picture should not include 26 staff members.

This would be akin to a college football team picture having over 200 staff. And you can look at college football team photos and see they usually have around 50-75 staff members. Alabama's 2020 natl champ team photo includes 65 staff members for 115 players. This VT team picture is ridiculous.

But the players getting paid is the problem.

This is one of the worst team photos I have ever seen. Embarrassing for the players, and patronizing to the staff. The participation trophy kids are all grown up.

Skill is one thing, the NBA is vastly more physical than college. He would

be better off playing the 3. 4s in the NBA are huge and strong and will physically punish you. Lots of dominant college "bigs" get manhandled in the league. Hope he plays more like KD and less like AD and Giannis.

Wessler will be fine once the game slows down for him, he is moving too

fast at the wrong times and getting himself in bad positions on defense, then on offense the ball is a hot potato when he gets it and he can't get rid of it fast enough. He needs reps reps reps. I wish CMY would start him a few games and just let him screw up and then he will realize the world isn't going to end if he messes up, and he can relax and just let the game come to him. He really needed a year at a small D1 to learn the speed of the game, then he would be farther along than he is now.

When you are in the right conference, and/or you don't have to carry an

entire offense. Pedulla is with more capable players so he doesn't have to do it all. Ole Miss has 4 players averaging double figure points, VT has 1.

Everybody was waiting on someone else to step in front of him. Same thing

this team does in every situation, wait on someone else to do it. On a real competitive team, every player within range would have gotten in front of him and either tried to strip the ball, take a charge, or foul him to stop the ball. This team is not coached to be Power 5 level mean and tough, as is necessary to compete in the ultra-competitive world that is college basketball.

The other players have to grab the boards while the bigs are boxing the

other bigs out. Duke's guard Sion James had as many rebounds as all their other starters combined. That is on Tech's guards, they have to fight harder for it. Wessler and Poteat have their hands full trying to keep Duke's bigs off the boards, then the guards have to get in position and read where the ball is going and go get it. VT guards watch the ball instead of going after it.

Looked like he belonged out there just as much as any of our other guys.

He has issues, but he plays hard and gives max effort at all times, and proved he can score against the best team in the ACC. That is a lot more than I can say for most of the rest of the team, which looks like they belong more in the SoCon than the ACC. If you are small, and you can't shoot, and you can't defend anyone, how do you expect to play in the ACC???

Exactly, CMY needs to stop fooling with these SoCon level guards and go

find one or two elite wings or bigs and get them to come to Blacksburg, and that will draw the elite guards to come play for him. Guards that don't have great wings and bigs around them end up doing exactly what Pedulla did, having to try to carry the team by themselves, and it's just an endless string of turnovers and forced shots. It seems to me that CMY likes these small socon level guards, Murphy, Pedulla, Rechsteiner, and power 5 level bigs and wings don't want to play with guys like that.

Yes and when you can't beat a press it means your guards are too small and

or slow for the level they are playing at. It doesn't matter how well you can handle the ball, if you don't have size and strength and quickness, a press will expose it and you will struggle.

There are hundreds of non-power 5 coaches out there.

Competent athletic directors should be able to identify at least a dozen coaches that are doing really well at their schools. I am sure some of those coaches would jump at the chance to move to the ACC.

It seems to me like these NIL collectives or whatever they are popped up

out of nowhere the instant NIL became legal. And if there is one thing I know, companies don't form overnight unless a bunch of people are figuring to make some money. I think people should be allowed to see the data, just like charities have to report their data.

I notice they have 9 people on their "team" showing on their site.

I assume all 9 are getting paid. That would be quite a bit of money, not to mention all their overhead.

Is Triumph just another layer of bureaucracy that is taking money from

the athletes? I am not familiar with them and wonder just what their cut is, and who is overseeing them and auditing them and making sure they are not just pocketing a bunch of money that is intended for the athletes. Forgive me if this is a dumb question, but I hate to think NIL has just turned into another way for adults to make money off these athletes.

Can we finish higher than dead last in the ACC in rebounding this season?

Rebounding is not something that requires special skill. It is all about coaches emphasizing it and players getting out there and wanting it. Will be interesting to see if this is a point of emphasis this season.

Basically these coaches are saying "if we can't control them, we don't want

to coach them". Pretty lame argument. Times have changed, either adapt or get out of the way.

The state and local govts. back it 100% cause they can tax it to death to

prop up and expand the government. They even go out of their way to prohibit other forms of gambling so as not to take money from the gambling that they are reaping tax dollars from.

There are very few guys Mac's size in the NBA, and the ones that are are

absolute scoring machines, or elite defenders. Mac is neither unfortunately. He struggles to create his own shot over bigger guards, and is not a good enough defender to make up for his offensive deficiencies. If he could either rain 3s like Steph and Dame, or was as crafty as Kyrie and Brunson, or could clamp someone down like a Mitchell or Smart then he would be in the league. He has had a few chances in the league, and you can tell he just doesn't quite have it. I wish he did, I'm a huge fan of his.

Thanks for that, I still wonder how Power 5 coaches narrow down who they

want to target. Hundreds of guys get in the portal, a lot of them are basically the same size and have the same stats. How do they choose??? It seems incredibly difficult.

With all the players in the portal, how on earth do coaches narrow down

the ones they want? Deng is a 6'9" 220lb freshman that avg 22 mpg, 11 ppg, and was 43 for 110 from 3. What makes him so special? Size, being a freshman, 3pt %, or all the above? He only had 4 rpg and only 16 blocks total in 33 games played. Seems like defense is not really his strong suit. You would think a guy of that size playing that much would get 16 blocks in Hampton's conf. without even trying.

Most people nowadays treat everyone except close friends and family

like dirt. Go out and see how people treat one another, makes you want to stay home.

A couple of players we were really counting on disappeared in big games,

you can't have that, especially on the road. I think some guys peaked last year, some transfers underperformed, and some new guys didn't get enough minutes early in the season to get up to speed so they would be able to help later on. We have some borderline ACC players getting a lot of minutes, and it shows in big games.

When he stays on his toes he is fine, when he gets back on his heels

is when he gets exposed. He is running around like the floor is electrified, but once he settles down and learns to stay on his toes and not overreact to every little movement I think he'll be fine. He could have had 2 nasty put back dunks if he had slowed down a little and timed his jump on those 2 Pedulla missed layups.

to play in the NBA as a big you have to be either very strong,

(Gobert, Adams, Jokic, Lopez), extremely skilled (Jokic, AD, Sengun, Sabonis, Embiid, Holmgren), or a pogo-stick (Lively, Williams, Allen). Kidd is none of these so his chances in the NBA are not too good.

the players are all so even now for the most part, and role players play

1000x better at home. Stars are supposed to be stars at home and on the road, but our stars are like role players in that they struggle on the road.

so he had a huge influence, and she could have left for more $$$ I assume.

But yet she stayed and is a huge reason for their success, which hopefully for them will bring more big time players and more success. The key is getting that first big impact player. That is where the men seem so far behind. Getting a dominant player.

Ridiculous question maybe, but if the women can get Kitley, why can't the

men get a 5 star ACC POY caliber big? Kitley could have gone anywhere I assume, why did she choose VT? What could the men do to get an equally talented player? I know everyone says money and location etc. But if the women can do it, what is their secret?

They held Miami to 38, hope we can get a lot more than that. Our bigs have

to step up. Guards have gotten so good at stopping each other, the games turn into a struggle when you don't have reliable bigs that can get you a bucket consistently. This has been VT's biggest problem since Aluma left.

Tony Bennett giving his freshman center minutes and keeping it simple. Wish

we could get CMY to do that with Wessler. He's not going to get better sitting on the bench.

Kidd has to demand the ball and then go up strong with it, he is letting

UVA control him. He needs to take command of the paint. He has too many years under his belt to disappear in a big road game.

Young and/or role players always struggle on the road, that's why I said

Kidd, Catoor, and Pedulla have to step up. You can't expect Nickel and the others to carry you to victory on the road.

GC said he had a proven track record of being able to shoot, and I believe

that. Now shooting at the ACC level is obviously tougher, and a kid in his second year that barely played at UNC in his first doesn't have time to have a proven record at anything at the ACC level. You are trying to add to what GC said, of course he doesn't have an ACC level shot, neither did Pedulla or Cattoor.

I see your point, but he has barely got his feet wet at this level, he is

still figuring out his role in this system, and the coaches are too. A lot of this goes on the coaches. Maybe instead of working on the 500th way to get Cattoor open for a 3, we work on getting some dang rebounds, and work on getting looks for other people. You can't put all this on Nickel, we need a system that works for all the players.