Virginia Basketball is about halfway through its European Tour. The results so far:
Some takeways from the trip so far...
- The defense - the calling card of Virginia Basketball under Tony Bennett - is sucking. We're bending over and taking 82 ppg from these funky, old, short, unathletic Euroteams.
- The team misses Malcolm Brogdon, who is unable to play on the trip due to continued rehab of his bombed-out foot.
- We might have found a real player in true freshman center Mike Tobey. Tobes has scored 18, 12, and 19 points in the three games, adding an average of about 7 rebounds per game. If he's a legit 16 & 7 guy as a freshman... wow. He won't be that, but if he can give us 8 & 4, that's a giant, unexpected boon.
- Another player who has been impressing is UVA's "Big Fundamental" -- Akil Mitchell. Big Fun has chipped in 8, 12, and 20 points in the three games. (This is a nickname that I am fucking determined to make stick. So help me make it work.)
- Or maybe these Euroteams just don't have any size and our two bigs are having a field day due to the lack of competition. But if that's the case, what's up with Darion Atkins' 5 ppg on the trip? Either Big Fun and Tobey are shining, or Atkins is stinking. I choose to go with shine over stink.
- The freshmen had a good first game, but as a group struggled in the second and third games. Erratic play, that's to be expected from youngsters.
- Evan Nolte has been starting at the 3, with Joe Harris at the 2. Nolte gave way to Paul Jesperson, who started at small forward in the third game. Of course, this will all change once Brog is back and starting at the 2, pushing Joe to the 3. I've long thought Nolte would start at the 4, but now it looks like it might be Big Fun at the 4 and Tobey at the 5 once the season starts. Interesting...
- On the bad defense so far on the EuroTrip, our starting
strong safetypoint guard Jontel Evans had this to say: "Rome wasn't built in a day." Ziiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!
We have two more games on the trip -- vs. AMW Team France on Monday and Tuesday, 1:00 PM EST both days. It'd be nice to win both and pull this trip out of the fire, but I'm honestly okay with going over to Europe and having our teeth kicked in -- that will be a nice springboard for tough love coaching as we head into the season. Best case scenario for the fans but worst case for the team would have been to breeze through a 5-0 record in Europe.
So chin up, Hoofans, Rome was not built in a day.
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| I just hope Nicholas Batum doesn't play for AMW Team France. I buy "you gotta crawl before you can walk," but you don't want to be crawling because you just got punched in the nuts. |
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