The new season [and new era!] of Virginia Basketball begins in just nine days. And since we're 26 long days away from the glorious shitcanning of Al Groh, I thought now was the right time to launch a quick basketball piece.
In honor of our best player, Sylven Landesberg, here are 15 bold predictions for this year's edition of Virginia Basketball, in no particular order:
1) We will win 17 games this season, including 7 ACC games. (17-12, 7-9 ACC headed into the ACC Tournament in early March.)
2) Jerome Meyinsse will be our starting center, and he'll have a very solid senior campaign. I think he'll average somewhere around 18-20 minutes, 7 points, and 5 rebounds.
3) We will beat Duke in the JPJ Arena on February 28th. It will be magnificent.
4) Mike Scott will average a double-double.
5) We will win a game in the ACC Tournament.
6) Calvin Baker's role will be minimized. He's great on defense, but Coach Bennett will hate his ball-hogging and penchant for turnovers, and Baker is coming off of knee surgery. Sam Zeglinski and Jontel Evans will split time at the point and Jeff Jones will log most of the minutes at shooting guard, leaving Baker to battle Mustapha Farrakhan for scraps of playing time... and Mu is a better shooter.
7) We will all be sweating out the late Spring, hoping and praying that Sylven Landesberg holds off on the NBA in order to play his junior season at Virginia in 2010/11.
8) Jamil Tucker averaged 18.5 minutes per game last year. This season, he will see half of that amount of time on the court. The reason: he's a liability on defense. He's too big/slow to guard small forwards and too small/weak to guard power forwards. Tristan Spurlock and Solomon Tat will take the minutes Tucker is vacating. We'll miss Tucker's three point shooting, but will gladly welcome Tat's defense and Spurlock's energy and athleticism.
9) As we enter ACC play in early January, our starting lineup will be Zeglinski, Jeff Jones, Landesberg, Mike Scott, and Meyinsse. Spurlock will be the first player off the bench, with Jontel Evans not far behind. Jamil Tucker, Calvin Baker, and Assane Sene will be the big losers from our coaching change.
10) Tony Bennett's pack-line defensive system will prove to be a MAJOR improvement over whatever bullcrap defense we were playing under Leitao's guidance. However, teams with good passing big men and perimeter players who can shoot the three will carve us to pieces. I think Miami, Florida State, and Maryland are specifically bad match-ups for Bennett's system.
11) Season ticket holders will come to realize that they have been screwed over by the home schedule this season. There is no home game against UNC, and the home schedule includes games against Longwood, UNC Wilmington, NJIT, Hampton, and Texas Pan-American. Our "marquee" out of conference home games are against Penn State and UAB. Bleccch.
12) We will lose a home game to either Rider (on Nov. 19th) or Oral Roberts (on Nov. 21st). Fickle Virginia fans will begin to question Tony Bennett's coaching ability and the wisdom of the hire... until...
13) We beat Stanford on Nov. 24th in Cancun.
14) As K.T. Harrell, Joe Harris, James Johnson, Will Regan, and Akim Mitchell play out their senior seasons in high school, the national media will come to recognize the fact that Coach Bennett has assembled a truly stellar 2010 recruiting class. Harrell and Johnson, especially, will ooze star potential.
15) NIT, here we come. (The 2011 NCAA Tournament will mark our "arrival" as a force to be reckoned with under Coach Bennett.)
Love seeing those 5 letters of intent and that top 15 recruiting class. It's amazing that all five are from out of state. How long will TB's western connections last? How important is it for him to make some in-roads with VA high schoolers?
ReplyDeleteI think it's important for Coach Bennett to recrui9t the state, but this isn't football. In-state recruits are critical. As long as you're bringing in guys who can play and compete at the ACC level, you're recruiting well.
ReplyDeleteI think Bennett is taking the absolutely correct approach: narrow down your initial search by academics, then sell the school for what it is. It only helps that he's able to make such fast and sincere connections based on faith and his personality. He's finding kids who want to play for him and attend UVA, and that will [hopefully] cut down on the attrition that has been killing Virginia Basketball since the mid-'90s. Plus, he's finding players who have the cerebral capacity to learn and run his pack-line defense and his screen-heavy offense.