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Dan's take on Wake

cville deac said:
What's really amazing is that he's doing it mostly with 3*s. A couple of early 4*s didn't pan out and transferred. Of the current group, only Brogdon, Anderson and I think Tobey are 4*s (Perrantes I think was a high 3*). Harris and Mitchell were 3*s too. Part of his success is due to luck with some lesser knowns outplaying their recruiting ranking. But the other part of it is how well his teams play the packline. He went to the Dance twice in 3 years at WSU, in the high basketball desert where they never got good recruits. And he had a bunch of less athletic kids winning games in the 40s. Now he has an athletic bunch playing it to perfection, and that's why they're the 2nd best team in the country. Their offense is pretty solid - they work it to get mostly decent shots (though Brogdon is really their only really strong offensive player), and they rarely turn it over. But this group wouldn't be #2 without suffocating teams like they do.
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Pilchard said:
Huge Bennett fan. He has been fortunate that Brogdon and Harris turned out to be future NBA players, when no one forecast that. With that said, he has taken that good fortune, and shaped it into a top 5 team in consecutive years. There are a lot of programs with better talent that can't do that.

Will be interesting to see if Bennett is able to use this success to raise UVA's recruiting profile (and to the extent Bennett wants to recruit top 25 guys), as he will not always land recruits that massively outperform their recruiting rankings.
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The reality is that UVA is a really talented basketball team that is really well coached.

Justin Anderson: 4-star (top-50 overall)
Evan Nolte: 4-star (top-75 overall)
Malcom Brogdon: 4-star (top-100 overall)
Mike Tobey: 4-star (top-100 overall)
BJ Stith: 4-star (top-100 overall) or 3-star (top-150 overall)
Anthony Gill: 4-star (top-100 overall) or 3-star (top-150 overall)
London Perrantes: 3-star (top-150 overall)
Devon Hall: 3-star (top-150)

I think it's fair to say that Atkins and Perrantes are the only two guys playing well above their projected ceiling, right now:

Perrantes is averaging 5.9 points (33%) and 4.4 assists.
Atkins is averaging 7.0 points and 6.1 rebounds.

Bennett is turning good players into great players. Rather than being fortunate, he is doing his job. And while y'all bitch about our team and about Manning, keep in mind that Bennett really wanted Mitchell Wilbekin.

We're used to coaches squandering talent; Tony Bennett does not seem to do that. Hopefully, Danny Manning will not do that either.

That a coach turns a top-50 or top-100 player into something special or useful (and we're talking about low first round to undrafted prospects here) really should not be surprising.
 
Our team looks like this:

CMM: 4-star (top-100)
Greg: 3-star (top-150)
Devin: 3-star (UR)
Aaron: 3-star (UR)
Mitchell: 3-star (UR)
Madison: 2/3-star (UR)
Andre: 2/3-star (UR)
Daniel: 2/3-star (UR)
Rondale: 2-star (UR)
Darius: UR
Crab: UR
Dinos: UR
 
Pilchard said:
Huge Bennett fan. He has been fortunate that Brogdon and Harris turned out to be future NBA players, when no one forecast that. With that said, he has taken that good fortune, and shaped it into a top 5 team in consecutive years. There are a lot of programs with better talent that can't do that.

Will be interesting to see if Bennett is able to use this success to raise UVA's recruiting profile (and to the extent Bennett wants to recruit top 25 guys), as he will not always land recruits that massively outperform their recruiting rankings.
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I suspect Bennett has a lot to do with those recruits over-performing.
 
Strickland33 said:
Our team looks like this:

CMM: 4-star (top-100)
Greg: 3-star (top-150)
Devin: 3-star (UR)
Aaron: 3-star (UR)
Mitchell: 3-star (UR)
Madison: 2/3-star (UR)
Andre: 2/3-star (UR)
Daniel: 2/3-star (UR)
Rondale: 2-star (UR)
Darius: UR
Crab: UR
Dinos: UR
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Thanks Bz/Ron/Nate! You guys are the best!
 
Don't forget that it took Bennett 3 years to turn the corner. There was a major faction that wanted Bennett and Littlepage out, especially after Bennett booted Landesberg. And football has sucked for years. While I think even Littlepage would acknowledge, now, in private, that Clawson was the reason London had any success, he has to be given all the credit for IDing Bennett and sticking with him. And UVa has some SERIOUS pain in the ass big donors who threatened to take him down.

Relax. It is a process. DM is doing GREAT. With the hand he was dealt. He has talent that is capable of getting whipped by Del St. A little success has bred unreasonable expectations for this year. We have a lot of good role players, but no true ACC level PG and no true C. Wow.... Undersized, too. That is NOT a good recipe for success.... I love CMM and DT, but they are doing the best they can to play out of position. To make a baseball analogy, I love me some Big Papi, but if he is my 3B, he starts not looking so great. Same with DT and CMM. I've been impressed with their fight and the successes they have had. This was a throwaway year, period. DM is doing it right. The recruiting is there, and he cut and pasted a competitive team this year. We will be back soon. DM is the man.
 
While I don't want to dump on the team, the most damning stat to the game is 12 made shots and 13 turnovers. To anyone that watched the game (and there a a lot with opinions here that didn't bother) it was clear our effort was not there.

While UVA should be able to beat us on any normal night, the reason we were embarrassed is because we didn't bring the effort and intensity on either end.
 
UVA is also big-everybody 6-5 or bigger. We play a lot of minutes with 6 footers. Wilbekin had to guard Shayok most of the night. On offense they basically overpowered our guys drawing help and then feeding the open man. They either an uncontested layup or an open 3.
 
UVA is also big-everybody 6-5 or bigger. We play a lot of minutes with 6 footers. Wilbekin had to guard Shayok most of the night. On offense they basically overpowered our guys drawing help and then feeding the open man. They either an uncontested layup or an open 3. Perantes is their only little guy and he did not play.
 
Deac83 said:
While I don't want to dump on the team, the most damning stat to the game is 12 made shots and 13 turnovers. To anyone that watched the game (and there a a lot with opinions here that didn't bother) it was clear our effort was not there.

While UVA should be able to beat us on any normal night, the reason we were embarrassed is because we didn't bring the effort and intensity on either end.
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No.
 
Did Ga Tech only score 28 against UVA because of a lack of effort? Did #67 Harvard only score 27 against UVA because of a lack of effort? Did we get down 32 last year to UVA (and probably could have lost by 40 if Bennett didn't put the walk-ons in the last 4-5 minutes) because of a lack of effort? UVA is 26-1 for a reason. Shit happens, homes.
 
Regarding Bennett's talent as a recruiter - It's worth noting that Bennett's first true recruiting class at WSU included 4-star SG Klay Thompson and five three stars. As an assistant at Wisconsin and WSU, he recruited Devin Harris, Brian Butch, Alando Tucker, Kyle Weaver, and Aron Baynes.
 
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VaDeac said:
Thanks Bz/Ron/Nate! You guys are the best!
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THIS!!! DM is going to be cleaning up this mess for a few years. When we start getting 4 (and a few 5) star players hopefully again, that will fix a lot of things and give coaches something to work with.
 
Ayo said:
Did Ga Tech only score 28 against UVA because of a lack of effort? Did #67 Harvard only score 27 against UVA because of a lack of effort? Did we get down 32 last year to UVA (and probably could have lost by 40 if Bennett didn't put the walk-ons in the last 4-5 minutes) because of a lack of effort? UVA is 26-1 for a reason. Shit happens, homes.
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"Lack of effort" is a completely immeasurable (and thus, in some minds, irrefutable) claim that people who don't know what they're talking about throw around when they don't have, or don't want to accept, another explanation.
 
Definitely remember his name coming up when Skip passed. Probably would have been available after an interim year of Dino (Bennett's 2nd season at Wazzou).
 
VaDeac said:
Amazing that you either can read the minds of twelve college students or have locker room access that's unmatched on this board.
What a simplistic, simplistic rationalization.
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VaDeac, Did we play over our heads in Charlottesville and show who we really are Wednesday night? Did the Cavs mail it in a week and a half ago and played like they have the rest of the season against us? ABSOLUTELY.
 
In the first matchup, UVA (and Tobey in particular) wasn't switching well on Dinos (in particular) and were playing too far off Crab. They made great defensive adjustments last night and forced those guys to either take really contested jumpers for the most part or force them to beat them off the dribble. And I think that's one of our biggest weaknesses on offense. Our best shooters can't put the ball on the deck and beat defenders off the dribble. It has nothing to do with energy or effort or whatever the heck you wanna call it.
 
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