VickFlick_Skip

As Scott Van Pelt would say "it's all still right there in front of you", unlike past seasons we actually have the chance to get some resume boosting wins. Q1-A is Net 1-15 at home & Net 1-40 on the road. The Net rankings fluctuate so don't get all nit picky on me, but bottom line is even if we steal 1-2 of those games it would be huge for the NCAA tourny resume. The Q1-A record is looked at by the committee, suffice to say any of these wins would carry more weight than say a road win against a team hovering around 70 in the Net. Just some positive thinking before we embark on this daunting gauntlet of games.

We all had to watch a gut wrenching loss on TV, you had to watch from the front row. What was Mike's tone/attitude like postgame? Was he upset/ticked off or genuinely not too worried as he said in his quotes?

I'd advise not opening it if you are trying to get something done hahaha. Bart Torvik is awesome, I use all the analytics sites, KenPom, EvanMiya etc. I think Torvik is the best/my favorite one. Not sure people are aware but his ratings/rankings are used by the selection committee on the NCAA Team Sheets.

These are great, Warren Nolan & Barttorvik are good too but better to get it from the direct source. I guess my point was that 4 of those road Quad 1 games would still be quad 1 at home. (Rounding Miami up 1 spot to 30) Then Wake Forest, Stanford, Notre Dame are all within striking distance of the top 75 which could potentially be Quad 1 if they were on the road. So I was mainly guestimating because all this will fluctuate, but upon glance I didn't love how the schedule set up for us in terms of the Quad sheet. You're right about Quad 2, that's concerning. Quad 3/4 wins have no value & pose a lose-lose situation for us.

I was looking at this earlier, & how it impacts our ACC schedule. Made a post about it at the top of the board.

We are kind of getting screwed by it in our conference schedule. I understand why it's in place, and should certainly be used. But I just think it can be a poor reflection of a team's quality win/losses. Let's use Quad 2 for example. Right now a home win vs Miami (#31 NET) is viewed the same as a road win vs Lipscomb (#135 NET)... which is absurd! But no one will ever actually dive that deep into a teams resume to see that, they'll just see a quad 2 win or loss. For VT not only is our schedule difficult in the simple sense of winning a tough road game, but also in the sense that this NET Quadrant home/road discrepancy significantly hinders our Quad 1 opportunities. We have about 10-11 potential Quad 1 games right now. Flip flop our home/road schedule & we'd likely have close to 14-16 Quad 1 chances. Now the plus side for VT is there is a Quad 1A category which is essentially viewed as a massive non-flukey Quality win, & is noted so on the Team sheets used for Tourney Selection. We currently have 8 Quad 1A opportunities.. AKA... Big Time resume boosting quality wins. Winning 2-4 of those would be huge for the resume. Obviously everything will fluctuate throughout the season so these numbers won't stick, but helps to give an idea of what we are working with. *Note* - I often use Warren Nolan for the Net team sheet stuff (Linked). But his SOS & Result's based metrics rankings are sometimes off/inaccurate. Would use the Teamsheet Ranks page on Barttorvik.com for all the metrics rankings.

shifter throughout the season. Now more than ever with the roster overhaul across the board, i think preseason expectations/data should be minimal if not removed even for "Power Ratings" that account for a teams talent/player rating. Because everyone is playing in a different lineup, scheme, surrounding players etc. season by season. The carry-over is almost non-existent. I think CBB as a whole has gotten a little too infatuated with the metrics as it pertains to evaluating teams or conferences. It's imperative to a degree, & sure it was groundbreaking 10-15 yrs ago & much better than just using RPI, but now the metrics are almost treated like the bible. Regarding KenPom, by late Feb or March his ratings are usually pretty spot on, but I'm with you I dont think he makes any effort to make adjustments or corrections throughout the season like Barttorvik or EvanMiya attempt to do. Which is odd because KenPom is actually metric on the NCAA Tourny Team Sheet, I even think a low-major conference used his rankings to determine their conf tourny seeding a few years back. I get he was the pioneer of all this, but sometimes I get the sense he feels no need to adapt or evolve his rankings & truly believes there's nothing wrong with his formula what so ever. Sorry that was a bit of a rant but I follow the metrics sites daily & can see the flaws you're alluding to.

to make constant read's defensively barely giving you anytime to process or reset and eventually there is a defensive breakdown some where. One thing i noticed was Louisville would go on these crazy runs or scoring spurts but also go cold, they would be up by 20 in a flash & then in a matter of minutes that lead was down to 8. Im curious what their KillShot percentage/rating is on EvanMiya, which tracks how many 10-0 runs you have but also give up. Also the Yum Center looked & sounded hostile last night, i'm not looking forward to our road trip there hahaha. However Louisville plays Duke 2 days after our game so could potentially be a trap/look ahead spot.

Granted this was 2-3 years ago on a Podcast with Jordan Sperber who runs HoopVision, but I remember him going in depth on it. Obviously he ween's off the preseason data week by week as the season progresses, but he doesn't fully remove it from his calculations/output until the last few weeks in January. It sort of makes sense b/c if he didn't I imagine the rankings would fluctuate like crazy in the Non-Conference portion of the season.

However that applies to us as well. It really is a crazy concept this premier tournament is held in that type of setting. A few years ago Battle for Atlantis was by far the most difficult MTE or early-season tournament.

When he was fired from OK State 2 years ago I thought it would be a great move to bring him on board given his relationship with Mike Young. Clearly he can recruit, just wasn't able to muster up enough wins in stillwater. If CMY is actually considering retirement in 2-3 years, that could be part of the sales pitch to him. Not saying that's who I would want as the next HC, & I would prefer CMY *NOT retire & keep coaching a few more years, just some thoughts...

Colorado St & Saint Mary's?? Sign me up, those 2 programs can claim legal residency in the NET top 50 every year. Forgot CSU had a new coach, but the metrics usually love the Mountain West teams. Also love the Ali Farokhmanesh reference/call back to the Kansas 1 seed upset. One of the boldest shots ive ever seen in March Madness.

2019 Sweet 16 team was #13 & 2022 ACC Champ team was #19. Shouldn't come as that much of a surprise since if you remember the metrics loved that '22 team all year, and as much of the fanbase was aware, the team was damn good we just couldn't win any games until late in the season. The caveat here is that '19 sweet 16 team had a KenPom rating of +24.07 where as the '22 team had a +18.86 rating. So clearly KenPom viewed that sweet 16 team as much better and the rest of college basketball as a whole much better that season. 2019 truly had some loaded experienced teams that year.

In terms of transfers out & transfers in? Maybe a hypothetical guess at who might be starting at each weight class? I know TJ transferred but that seemed inevitable in season, I was shocked to see that Hipolito is transferring too?? WTH that is a massive disappointment/bummer. I was really excited to see his development & was starting to become one of my favorite wrestlers by seasons end. I was hoping Wrestling would not have as much unhinged roster turnover & portal attrition that we are seeing in other sports but just the reality of the times I guess. Fully trust this coaching staff to put together the best roster possible. I'm curious, given the dynamic of wrestling & how recruiting & athlete development is so much more personal/hands on for these coaches. Do you think the rate of transfers & portal madness wear's out or take's an emotional toll on our coaching staff?? Or are they just dog competitors & go out to find quality talent to replace/build the roster without a second thought? Anyways didn't mean to get so reflective, but I sure do miss those January/February Friday night ACC Duel's right now! Hoping we can have as much fun this upcoming season!

I promise you this will be the best 2 minutes of your day haha! I've probably watched this over 100 times since I was in middle school. Surprisingly a lot of young tech fans from the past decade are totally unaware of who Deron is. I always pull up this video to show why he's considered a mid-2000's legend among Hokie Bball enthusiasts. (FYI there is NO foul language in the rap song, so safe to show the kids lol) ** Edited by VickFlick_Skip at 6/18/2025, 1:13:57 PM

So i doubt he is any legitimate threat from beyond the arc, if Mike Young even gives him the green light to do so. His Pick & Roll ability looked good on tape. There is 1 clip where he sets a screen at halfcourt & rolls all the way to the basket for a layup rather quickly. He looked decisive with the ball but that could mean he has no intention of passing it off lol. Regardless I liked his intensity/moxy on tape, I bet him, Guardak, & Hansberry would be fun to watch battle it out in practice.

is currently #3 in the 157 class (per Wrestle Stat). Hopefully that bumps him up a few spots. Interestingly, Hipolito has the 2nd highest RPI total & RPI weight class ranking on the team after Henson. Despite all that, I still think he is wrestling so good right now he has the potential to make a run regardless of seed line. I could be having some recency bias but he looks to be peaking at the perfect time.

Going by weight class, there are others on this board who have watched these guys far longer and more in-tune with the national landscape, so by all means tell me if I am off, or over/under selling a guy. 125 & 149: Legit title contenders. based off seed & they are elite level, hell 149 is the reigning, defending, undisputed champ. 133 & 157: Can make a deep run. 133 weight class seems wide open, both wrestlers should have a decent seed and look to be peaking at the right time of year. 141 & 197: Fully capable of making a deep run. But may have a tough draw, and can be inconsistent so we aren't sure what version will show up 285/Hwt: Has had a great season & can compete at the top level. The weight class is just stacked with a ton of Senior's who have insane experience & talent. Don't worry his time is coming. 165, 174, 184: Don't expect much from them but can help provide some team points. 184 is currently a Seth Greenberg era bubble team so we'll see if he even makes the field. Regardless it should be an entertaining 3 days in the city of brotherly love.

Raf just looked so good in both his matches yesterday. For a guy that is so raw, he looked really smooth, comfortable, and most importantly he looked CONFIDENT. Very odd style but he seems to have found a way to use it as an advantage. He's wrestling good at the right time of year. For eddie to beat a top 5 guy again after he just barely beat him 2 weeks ago is impressive, he's wrestling smart, these last 2 matches against VR, you can see how eddie is strategically using his explosion & athleticism, really picking his spots. Probably doing Henson a disservice not including him but we've become so used to this just being the norm from him. Seriously what more could we have asked of him this year? The Mcgonagle - Orine match was a crazy wild ending, that one had me jumping up and down in the living room!

I tuned in to watch Steveson vs. Kerkvliet in the Big 10 Finals, one of the premier matches of the entire year, and they still had all 3 mat's set up, using the individual mat camera angle to show the match. Keep in mind this is #1 vs #2 ranked matchup with one of the most accomplished wrestlers we've seen, and there are guys in the background on another mat wrestling in a consolation match. They made no effort to make the finals seems important or entertaining. Most of that is the conference not necessarily the broadcast operations, but I talked to my buddy who's a Maryland fan and he said he was unable to watch a majority of the consolation matches. Meanwhile the ACC at least put's a single mat out, makes it its own event, does cool introductions. While the Big 12 tournament finals almost looked like a mini-NCAA championships event, it was impressive on TV. Like most everyone else i've had many frustrations with ACCN, but I was actually grateful yesterday when I saw what the Big 10 put out there production wise.

But low scoring is fine, often strategic/can lead to wins & it doesn't mean it's bad wrestling. I was also squirmish watching the match haha. We had some close high stakes matchups but it's also kind of a wrestling tick, many HS coaches do it on the sideline and it's hilarious to watch.

If he had enough matches to qualify his projected RPI rank (if it's even accurate) would be 5th in the country. You'd think he wouldn't want that metric go to waste.

Whether he got bullied by other coaches or wasn't skilled at making arguments for his wrestlers, we always had pretty ho-hum seedings or draws at individual tournaments or the county/district championships. Even some of our top guys (who were ranked in the state) sometimes had some head scratching seeds. Great wrestling coach & an incredible leader/role model, he just wasn't effective in the bracket seeding coaches pow-wow.

Outsides of the coaches poll or coaches input? That's a crazy amount of metrics/data points but seems there isn't much room for mis-interpretation or bias, the numbers are just the numbers. Didn't realize how complex or extensive the mathematical/metrics was in all this.

Im very tuned in to how it works for basketball/march madness, where the key criteria seems to shift every 2-3 years & frankly there are way too many metrics used by the bball committee. Is wrestling RPI rankings more of a minor resource used to validate what the bracket/seed makers are seeing? Or is it the primary criteria they use? In bball the regular season polls are essentially meaningless and actually don't translate to a team's tourny seedline much at all, is that the case here? I realize there are like 10 flippin polls but do these weekly rankings end up reflecting the seeding accurately or are they purely for fanfare? When I wrestled in high school tournament seeding was decided by all the coaches in a 30 minute meeting after weigh in's so it was often a crapshoot. Im not as aware for the tournament selection/seeding at the college level.

The interview is linked in the original post, but led to some good discussion and nice insight from GC34.

And Gurdak is not at this stage (i guess one of his few knocks). Curious to see if that part of Jones game truly translates at the college level. Of course ive now come to my senses and realized the true answer to this question is which one or both/neither can be a reliable defender hahaha.

Monday after the biggest home football game of the year, & some folks will have the day off for the Federal Holiday.

Gurdak is probably a little more coordinated and certainly moves better than wessler did. Heck I saw a clip where Gurdak took a defender off the dribble from the 3 pt line for a dunk. Probably a better passer too & looks more comfortable w/ his moves underneath the basket with a defender all over him, as opposed to Wessler maybe just utilizing his height in the same scenarios (on his HS tape). Wessler is skilled no doubt but he's just not as fluid. We were always told he was a project, & if everything came together maybe a better ceiling than Gurdak. But let's be honest how much of his recruiting ratings were due to that '7' being next to his name? Heck Rivals listed him a 4 star & im not even sure how much time he'll see in his 3rd yr. It'd be nice to see more of him to get a better sense of his development but he's still kind of an unknown. Also not that big of a deal, but their HS competition is a little different. Wessler played for a solid program who played a national schedule against talented teams, but i personally don't think it matches the intensity of the WCAC games/teams. These DC catholic schools are SERIOUS about their athletics. WCAC will have 4-5 teams ranked top 25 nationally & they are local historical rival schools (actual HS's, not athletic boarding HS's), where players sometimes transfer between teams (like Gurdak did). So I think those players are ready to 'compete' at a level like the ACC. Just my opinion on that though.

But it's just the name of the game right now. There may be a tiny decrease in the portal movement now that the large majority of players don't have a Covid year (or it just increases lol). Regardless all of this may turn into a semi-pro format in the next 2-3 years which might be our only hope of consistency/retention and not pure utter chaos like it currently is. Aside from that I feel these new or next crop of recruits for CMY will not depart as fast as the others have previously. After 5 years I think most recruits know who CMY is & what VT is as a program, & hence what they're getting into. I'm sure they'll leave at some point but maybe not in 1 year like we've had to deal with.

I think their first game is on Friday, but will be interesting to see how many minutes Cattoor gets. Sometimes guys barely get enough time on the floor to even get into a rhythm, but the minutes are usually spread out on a summer league squad. Maybe he can have an FSU or Duke ACCT level shooting night and just pop off for 6-8 three's🤣. Regardless pretty sure the NBA is not in his future but i'll still enjoy watching him the next 2 weeks!

I found this interview & spotlight on Gurdak pretty insightful. It's from June '23 so old, but actually provides some key takeaways: - He's a BIG boy, as in strength/weight. Gurdak says he weighed 288! in January '23 & by June '23 was down to 252. Losing 36 lbs in a 5 month span is impressive (half of that was in-season too) so seems like he's got great work ethic. I'm curious if this will be something to monitor in the future, as well as how CMY wants to use him, continue to slim down? or bulk up to bang in the post with ACC bigs? - VT was on him EARLY... specifically CMY himself. This was over a year ago and he made it clear we were the school talking to him most. The host specifically asks Gurdak who his primary recruiter was at VT since Mike Jones left, and he said "Mike Young himself, the head coach". Big props to CMY on this one building a strong relationship early, interesting to know it wasn't a pure 'assistant coach get'. - He's from West Virginia and said he loves the outdoors/rural area, what a rare/refreshing take as that usually works against us, someone should link him up with Sergio Render lol. - He played at Paul VI his Freshman/Soph years where they won (& he contributed to) a championship. So this guy has been fully immersed in highly competitive basketball at the national level the past 4 yrs on top of the AAU circuit. - I'll try to catch 1 of his games up here this season against a WCAC opponent. Which i recommend to anyone who can go to 1. I went to a Dematha - O'Connell game 2 yrs ago to see Rodney Rice (RIP) play & holy smokes that was an intense atmosphere w/ high level play, Mike Young & Mike Jones even showed up haha. - Curious what the staff's long-term plan is for Gurdak & Ryan Jones together, you'd love to have them both on the floor but I don't really know if that's feasible or realistic, wonder what GC34 or Rev think about this.

Your point is valid, from a production standpoint this isn't at all out of our league in terms of NIL & recruiting. But from a pure prospect standpoint this normally isnt the type of guy we reel in.

This guy legit gets ABOVE eye-level with the rim when he jumps, im not kidding watch the highlights. No clue how good he'll be in the system, but the dunks, blocks, and rebounds are jaw dropping. This is certainly an overreaction but could Lawal be the most athletic player in the history of VT hoops. He might be the second coming of Deron Washington lol. Not that any of us really know what we're talking about on here, but i think Mike Young officially understood the assignment when folks were crying for a different style of players. Really starting to like how this transfer portal class is coming together.

if any type of official announcement was made. Nov 15 makes more sense as it is a Friday and would certainly bring out more fans. Not sure why they would do it on a Thursday other than for TV purposes. Regardless should be a fun night for us DMV fans to flock to the charm city. I wonder if a good fan turnout from VT & PSU would get Whit to think about a possible VT-PSU Football Game in Baltimore in the future. Always thought it would be a hyped up neutral site location for both fan bases to meet. Also i'll probably attend this game with some more casual VT BB fans and can't wait for them to not have a single clue who the hell any of our players are lol 🤣