Baseball!

Sorry for the lack of baseball posts... until now.  Boom.

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/va/sports/m-basebl/auto_pdf/2016-17/stats/season_stats.pdf

Let's take a look at this...

-- We have three weekend starters with sub-4.00 ERAs in Casey, Murderer Murdock, and Haseley. I feel really strongly that we've found our top three guys, guys who will carry us for the next two months. None of the three are really a bonafide 'ace,' per se... but they each possess soaring upside.

Trust me, we're lucky to have the Murderer in
orange and blue for 2017, 2018, and 2019.

Casey, meanwhile, is enjoying a triumphant ascension to his
rightful spot on Friday night.

(Also, this is my favorite UVA baseball uni.)

-- Bettinger is having a VERY good season. He's a real weapon in long relief. I really like him paired with Murdock, complementing Noah's raw overwhelming stuff with Betty's experience and savvy.

-- Doyle is an 'okay' closer, by UVA standards. He's good enough.

-- Bennett Sousa can eat some innings in relief. He's had some good outings.

-- To me, Chesdin Harrington is one of the unsung bright spots on this year's team. Really solid pitcher, especially against lesser competition (like we may face in the NCAA Tournament setting.)

-- Lynch and Sperling struggled as the Friday/Saturday starters, but have settled in nicely (so far) as mid-week guys. We'll need their arms in the tournament setting; and their experience as starters coupled with rebuilt confidence could/should serve us well.

The 6-foot-6 Sperling - at his best - can be intimidating and overpowering.
A real weapon as a #4/#5 starter.

-- It's hard to remember a time when our staff went a legit nine-deep with proven performers. Jack Roberts makes 10, though I'm not sure we'd ever trust him in an important game.

-- Offensively, the case can be made that this is Brian O'Connor's best lineup at UVA.

-- Haseley and Ginger Avenger Pavin Smith, fuhgettaboutit. Studs.

-- Caleb Knight has been a revelation at catcher. Hope he's able to keep this up thru the month of June.

-- Cam Simmons, Robbie Coman, Ernie Clement, all swinging capable bats. Ernie, specifically, is continuing to emerge from his early season sorta-semi-slump.

-- Jake McCarthy is an athletic marvel. I love what he brings to the table to complement the other guys.

(Also, this is my second-favorite UVA baseball uni.)

-- When guys like Weber, Eikhoff, and Novak are your "worst" hitters, you're in pretty god damn good shape.

-- .974 team fielding percentage. Slightly below BOC's best defensive teams, but very very solid. (For comparison --- 2012 - .972 / 2013 - .969 / 2014 - .981 / 2015 - .971 / 2016 - .970)

-- We're currently 30-9, 10-8 in the ACC, with weekend series against Notre Dame, at FSU, Miami, and at GT looming. It won't be easy to finish with a winning record in the ACC, but ND, Miami, and GT are having down years, and FSU is also a step off of their normally torrid pace. I predict something in the neighborhood of 7-5 during that span, yielding a 17-13 conference record when the dust settles.

-- We've been dominant in mid-week games, and with talents like Sperling and Lynch drawing those starts, I see no reason to expect anything less than success in upcoming games against JMU, Radford, Liberty, and Richmond. So I guess I'm predicting a 41-14 regular season record. That's maybe just outside national seed territory, but it's absolutely in range to allow us to host our first round regional.

-- The ACC tourney in Louisville is going to be beastly. Louisville is a strong team, playing with a big home field advantage. Clemson and Carolina are both juggernauts. Wake can beat anyone they play. We'll have our work cut out for us if we want to bring home that chip.

-- Current national seeds are likely: Oregon State (30-2), Louisville (31-4), Clemson (30-6), UNC (29-7), Texas Tech (31-8), TCU (28-7), Arizona (26-9), and... there's an opening for that #8 slot. Fullerton, LSU, Kentucky, Auburn, Florida, Michigan, Arkansas, Mississippi State, Texas A&M, Virginia... that's your scrum. (I'm probably wrong about the SEC teams -- at least two of them will land national seeds, based on SoS.)

-- My newly-adjusted expectations for this season: Good showing in the ACCT, host a regional, win said regional, road team in the super regional, 50-50 shot at advancing to Omaha. I'd like our chances against any of the non-SEC and non-ACC teams in that setting.

GO HOOS!

Talent Level in the Final Four

Let's take a look...


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2017 North Carolina
Player	Year	Rank
Nate Britt	2013	121
Isaiah Hicks	2013	16
Kennedy Meeks	2013	58
Justin Jackson	2014	9
Theo Pinson	2014	15
Joel Berry	2014	30
Luke Maye	2015	156
Tony Bradley	2016	27
Seventh Woods	2016	49
		53.44

Notes/thoughts:

• One player in the top-10 of his class.
• Six total top-50 kids.
• Only two of the nine contributors from outside the top-100.
• Three key seniors.
• I would say the main strength of this UNC team, aside from their size and ability up front, is the fact that the junior backcourt duo of Jackson and Berry held a very steady rudder in tournament play.
• A 53.44 average ranking probably positions Carolina as one of the top three or four most-talented teams in the nation (behind probably Duke and Kentucky, maybe Kansas).
• The key to this championship was retaining the talent for two or three seasons so it could coalesce.  One-and-dones (OADs) are great, but they don't tend to win championships, 2015 Duke and 2012 Kentucky notwithstanding.  (Okay, maybe teams built on the backs of OADs win 20% of the championships.  I'll allow that.)

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2017 Gonzaga
Player	Year	Rank	Transfer?
Przemek Karnowski	2012	451
Nigel Williams-Goss	2013	31	Washington
Johnathan Williams	2013	45	Missouri
Jordan Mathews	2013	131	California
Josh Perkins	2014	67
Silas Melson	2014	218
Zach Collins	2016	33
Killian Tillie	2016	122
		137.25

Notes/thoughts:

• Zero top-10 players.
• Three top-50s.
• Four out of eight contributors from outside the top-100.
• Four key seniors.  Safe to say this was a veteran-led team, despite major contributions from [likely] OAD Zach Collins.
• The Zags got lucky with a few things in their roster construction: Karnowski's redshirt season and subsequent development into an NBA-level big man, three incoming transfers making hay, and finding a unicorn in Collins.
• Nigel Williams-Goss was the engine that drove this machine, but it was the combo of Karnowski and Collins that set Gonzaga apart from its peers.  That's a massive aligning of the stars in the low post.
• Williams-Goss, by the way, wasn't an elite player.  His role on this Gonzaga team made him seem elite, but I don't think he ever really lived up that that distinction.  Frank Mason III (Kansas), Lonzo Ball (UCLA), Josh Hart (Villanova), Luke Kennard (Duke), Trevon Bluiett (Xavier), Jawun Evans (Oklahoma State), De'Aaron Fox (Kentucky), Devonte' Graham (Kansas), Malik Monk (Kentucky), Donovan Mitchell (Louisville), Sindarius Thornwell (South Carolina), Allonzo Trier (Arizona), Monte Morris (Iowa State), E.C. Matthews (Rhode Island)... these guards were all more dynamic / better than Williams-Goss.  I'm pretty sure the NBA agrees with me.  Slide one of those 14 other guys into NWG's spot with the Zags, and I'm pretty sure they would have been cutting down the nets. 
• At 137.25, I'm guessing this Zags roster ranks somewhere in the #20-#25 range, nationally.  I think we saw that brought to bear in Monday night's championship game, as Gonzaga lost more than its share of 50-50 balls and wilted down the stretch against Carolina's superior athleticism.

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2017 Oregon
Player	Year	Rank	Transfer?
Dylan Ennis	2011	451	Rice / Villanova
Dillon Brooks	2014	97
Jordan Bell	2014	101
Casey Benson	2014	187
Chris Boucher	2015	11
Tyler Dorsey	2015	28
Kavell Bigby-Williams	2016	3
Payton Pritchard	2016	54
Keith Smith	2016	104
		115.11

Notes/thoughts:

• One top-10 player.
• Three top-50s.
• Four of nine from outside the top-100.
• One key senior -- journeyman-turned-hero Dylan Ennis.
• A lot of player development with this team; Dillon Brooks went from just inside the top-100 to Pac-12 Conference Player of the Year and Jordan Bell went from #101 to an athletic low post beast and surefire NBA draftee.  Credit to Dana Altman and his staff.
• Important to note that the Ducks played the 2017 Tournament without its second-most talented player, Chris Boucher.
• Also important to note that its most talented player, Bigby-Williams, was merely a role player, often logging less than 10 mpg.
• I think the key to their tournament run was Tyler Dorsey, who proved that talent often does elevate a team.
• This team benefitted from its upperclassmen.  Ennis was a 26-year old 5th year senior.  Brooks and Bell were juniors.
• I think Oregon would have won the national championship minus Boucher's injury.  The best team I saw this season was Kansas, and we all know the monumental mental hurdle they face in tournament play.  The second-best team I saw this season was Oregon with Boucher.  (Carolina, by the way, probably wasn't even in the top five until they stepped up in the final Four.  My top five for 2016-17: #1 Kansas, #2 Oregon with Boucher, #3 Good Duke, #4 Kentucky, #5 Villanova, #6 UNC.)

2017 South Carolina
Player	Year	Rank
Sindarius Thornwell	2013	33
Duane Notice	2013	309
Justin McKie	2013	340
P.J. Dozier	2015	25
Chris Silva	2015	141
Sedee Keita	2016	113
Maik Kotsar	2016	347
Rakym Felder	2016	366
Hassani Gravett	2016	451
		236.11

Notes/thoughts:

• Zero top-10 players.
• Two top-50s.
• Seven of nine from outside the top-100.
• Three key seniors.
• It's hard to draw much info from looking at South Carolina.  They were this season's true Cinderella.  They were long and tough and played great defense, and got major scoring punch from Thornwell.
• It's not hard to construct a roster that looks like this.  Most also-ran P5 teams look like this, in terms of recruiting rankings.  I bet Clemson looks a lot like this.  I bet Texas Tech looks a lot like this.  I bet Nebraska looks a lot like this.  I bet Arizona State looks a lot like this.  So, it's not hard to construct a roster that looks like this.  What's hard is finding and developing a once-in-a-lifetime superstar like Sindarius Thornwell while at the same time receiving superb coaching from a guy like Frank Martin.  Make no mistake --- this was Thornwell and Martin's Final Four run, and it was a miracle Final Four run.

With that setting the stage, let's take a quick look at 2017-18 Virginia, prior to any incoming transfers.

2017-18 Virginia
Recruit	Year	Rank
Devon Hall	2013	123
Isaiah Wilkins	2014	145
Jack Salt	2014	353
Mamadi Diakite	2015	33
Kyle Guy	2016	38
Ty Jerome	2016	44
Jay Huff	2016	60
DeAndre Hunter	2016	92
Marco Anthony	2017	235
		124.78

Notes/thoughts:

• Zero top-10 players.  Same as Gonzaga and South Carolina, but less than UNC and Oregon, who each had one.
• Three top-50s.  Same as Gonzaga and Oregon, more than South Carolina (2), less than UNC (6).
• Four of nine from outside the top-100.  We'll have more top-100 talent than Gonzaga or South Carolina, the same as Oregon, and less than UNC.
• Two key seniors -- 5th year Devon Hall and 4th year Isaiah Wilkins, along with 4th year junior Jack Salt.  The problem is that our most experienced guys are our least talented guys.  You won't find many Final Four teams that receive the thrust of their talent from their sophomores, but that's exactly what we're looking at in 2016-17.
• I want to focus on the Guy (38) / Jerome (44) backcourt.  In terms of combined talent, it trumps the Williams-Goss (31) / Perkins (67) backcourt at Gonzaga, the Ennis (unranked) / Dorsey (28) backcourt at Oregon, and the Thornwell (33) / Notice (309) backcourt at South Carolina.  Berry (30) / Jackson (9) at UNC was elite, of course.  [Interesting to note that each of this year's Final Four teams had at least one guard ranked inside the top-35 of his recruiting class.  Kyle Guy just missed that mark.]
• I'm not suggesting that we're a Final Four team in 2016-17.  I'm merely pointing out that our talent level is getting to the point where the Final Four is a possibility... every... single... season...

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