Basketball 2019-2020

I definitely think in the past Davis at times chased points. I donā€™t think that is the case this year, heā€™s all we have on most nights. I commend him for staying here and finishing his career as a Niner. He could have easily left us after his solid Freshman or Sophomore season. I wonā€™t forget that about him.

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The only thing you lied about is saving you have seen several games he wins for us. There havenā€™t been too many lol. Davis is a great kid, but surrounded by not so good players. Wish he had a better supporting cast, but alot of faults he brings on himself.

Davis will do fine with professional basketball. He will be surrounded by more talent and it should make it easier for him to score. Glad he stuck it out so we could win more games than we would have.

He will certainly do fine with talent around him in the professional Euro leaguesā€¦

Which isnā€™t a bad thing. Our best player ever made a career over there.

Our best player ever made a career in the NBA. We have had some great players make their career in Europe though.

clt says el Tamir played in Europe to be closer to home. Turned down the nba

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I see what you did there!

And yes, Cornbread is the only Niner to have had a career in the NBAā€¦Henry Williams literally became ā€œthe Michael Jordan of Europeā€ after Tarkanian wouldnā€™t play him in San Antonio.

But there are truckloads of players that had NBA careers better than Christian Laettnerā€¦but he is still arguably considered by many to the best college player of all time.

Cornbread made a name on the biggest stage after college (due in large part because he had Larry Bird as his wingman)ā€¦but as a Forty Niner in college, Henry is our best player ever. IMO.

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I think we need to give Coach Sanchez his due time. This is his first year with no bench, some last minute recruits and players from a previous staff that had to buy into his system. It took Coach Bennett into year 3 to really get the ball rolling for UVA. At that point we can really assess the progress of the kids heā€™s recruiting, the system heā€™s coaching.

Weā€™ve seen what the system could look like defensively but we donā€™t know what the offense could be especially when we play with a ball dominate guard who is burdened with a majority of our offense.

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We have seen progress this year on the offensive side, but some of our guys could not throw the ball in an ocean. We usually get plenty of open looks now, but do not capitalize

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Some of our greats would have been perfect for todayā€™s NBA.

Agree. This year might be the worst year of basketball Iā€™ve ever seen us play, but we have no bench and a lack of talent and experience at many positions.

We could have been a decent amount better this year if Garvin and Thomas hadnā€™t gotten themselves kicked off the team. Neither was an amazing player, but they added some depth and size. I think BTB would have developed into a very good defensive post player with Sanchez. I hated to see him go.

I disagree, Maxwell was a dominant force against the best in the country at the college level, moreso than Williams. Williams was probably my favorite Niner to watch though, and I can recognize there is an argument for Williams.

This is probably a topic for another thread so Iā€™ll leave it there.

Itā€™s fair to have faith by looking to UVA and hoping for a similar rise in trajectory, but it would also be fair to acknowledge Bennet took over UVA at their lowest point in program history but still went 15-16 his first season, winning 5 games in the ACC. No, he was not forced to play walk ons and freshmen, but they were still considered to have overachieved.

We have no choice but to have hope, but thatā€™s all we got because we have still underachieved this season. We all know one great player makes a HUGE difference and we have arguably the best player in the conference, but still gonna finish last in a bad conference. Our lack of depth does not mean we should ever finish last in CUSA at its current level. If we do not have anything more than a marginal improvement over this awful season next year,I wonā€™t be holding my breath awaiting relevance.

they were still stocked with talent with 3 and 4 star players (Scott is in the NBA) so competing just based on talent should get you to .500. They won 5 games in the conf play his first year but they were also 1 conf loss from being at the bottom.

Virginia was an original member of the ACC in '53-'54. They went 16-11 that season, but only 1-4 vs ACC opponents. They did not have another winning season until the '71-'72 season. They werenā€™t bad most of those seasons, they were terrible.

Virginia did not win an ACC Tournament or appear in a NCAA Tournament until '75-'76 when they won the Tournament in a huge upset. In '79-'80, Ralph Sampson came to Virginia and they became a factor in College Basketball.

The only coach who left Virginia voluntarily was Terry Holland. What Tony Bennett is doing there is amazing. Bennett won at Washington State, another tough place to win. Sanchez could have learned plenty from Bennett, but it will take awhile to recruit players who can play in his system.

Mangum certainly looked better on Saturday. I hope he sticks it out because he has the potential. I almost wonder if Sanchez comes down harder on him simply because he believes in him and wants to see him become the player he can be.

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I once did a study on the past 2 decades of Niner ball with regards to kenpom and rpi changes from year to year. I found that the most we ever jumped was 150 from one season to another. If we are 297 now that would put us at 147 best case scenario. Thatā€™s basically where UAB is #148 at 20-14. Historically we are more likely to jump about 50 points from one season to the next, which would put us where Rice is at 13-19. We donā€™t have any big time recruits coming in, but I do like Sanchez. I will put my predictions at 14 and 18.

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We have some really good recruits coming in and some good players sitting out.

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They are good recruits that we believe will turn into big time players given experience and training. This will not happen right away most likely. The guys on the bench are also unknowns except for Vasic and we wonā€™t know how he will bounce back from injury yet. Shepherd still has to prove that he is a good college player also. I think jumping over 50 to 75 teams next year if the roster is not changed seems reasonable.