Aside from getting rid of the fans, the students, whatever might completely bring etiquette compliance from 99% to 100% … (Side note I think it’s at least noteworthy that said fans showed up and booed him in public rather than just calling people names on the internet … there’s at least slightly more accountability and skin in the game there) … I’d love it if you showed up next game to the corner of the student section to admonish these fans in person and hold them accountable pre-game and teach them a lesson. I’m 100% serious lolol. But what I’m really curious about is the roots here not the symptoms. Now as anyone who understands bball, probabilities, and variance … ultimately we had the ball in our best shooters hands a few times to make this a one-possession game, that it kinda looked like we never had any business being in. Our mythical “3 point defense” showed up in the 2h which seems to keep us in a lot of games (yes that’s a jab when teams often miss a lot of open looks against us) So play that out different say it’s a one possession game or we somehow force overtime and/or win. The conversation is still “holy crap this team is REALLY good, imagine how dominant they could be if Avdalas was on all cylinders” So in that vein … I’d like to run this by you as an insider/expert. I feel like I might just be getting old and turning into my old coaches, honestly, but I find myself constantly yelling internally “hustle! Rebound! Play defense! Get back in position! Put a hand up!!! BOX OUT!!!!” Hahahaa when I watch this team play. To be more concrete the defense flat out sucks from a few guys. Neo very politely is a liability on defense. That’s fine. Honestly. But it would go a long way if he were more of a stopper with his frame. I went grew up in teens and 20s thru the Collins/gordon/dowdell era thru the vassallo/dwash era basically Greenberg and buzz years. Not that I don’t remember the Tucker twins or Dixon/Matthew’s big east era but … Greenberg and Buzz teams always had a basically baseline culture it seemed that you weren’t going to be on the floor unless you gave max effort at all times and that basically manifested in defense and rebounding. I know times have changed and it seems like the players more have the coaches by the balls nowadays and the dynamic makes it harder to push them, withhold pt etc (not that we have that option with current roster - rosters are also less deep in NIL era) But do you see that as missing and is there anything that can be done to change it down the stretch? I’m old and can’t remember **** but I honestly have maybe one image all year of a player diving on the floor for a ball. The real rub is that the team - while many technical mistakes were made against uva … they definitely fought their ASS off for that game. And Hammond was the star of it. And even yesterday the announcers (who granted are also idiots but even a broken clock is right twice a day) kept saying how vt was creating any havoc on defense. Now I get it slippery slope - discipline is important especially to CMY … But you COULD see Hammond doing these things. Disrupting, creating pressure, scrapping … When’s the last time I saw a vt player RIP a 50/50 ball away from somebody in the air? There was just an entirely different feel And intensity to the heart of the team. And Greenberg would rightly point at guys like jamon really bringing that energy. Now obviously he’s a generational talent in that area not every team is going to have a jamon gordon but I can’t help but feel even if we had 10-25% more of “that” that this team could beat anybody. Why doesn’t lawal aggressively go to the rim more like dwash? Why doesn’t neo wake up in the morning salivating at the opportunity to catch and shoot like a vassallo? Obvi his numbers are bad but we KNOW neo is a threat from a college 3. It seems like he’s the only one who doesn’t. Slapping the floor pumping up the crowd getting cocky where is all that? Is there any chance of that down the stretch? Harrassment, intensity, fire, hustle, fight … it was the easiest thing in the world to root for those teams even when nothing went right … Or am I just getting old?