Time to round out the players portion of the season preview. Tomorrow, we move into the very interesting nonconference schedule, and then finally, next week, the ACC itself. 48 hours, man. 48 hours.
#32 - London Perrantes - Jr. PG
Now entering his third year as the unquestioned starter at point guard, Perrantes's sophomore year efficiency stats are a bit interesting. Compare:
Perrantes:
3pt%: .316
2pt%: .394
FT%: .778
ARate: 26.5
TORate: 20.3
Olivier Hanlan:
3pt%: .353
2pt%: .513
FT%: .759
ARate: 29.1
TORate: 15.0
Hanlan was Boston College's do-it-all star, the league's top point guard last year and a draft pick of the Utah Jazz after his junior year. There's no doubt who was the better player. But Perrantes finished with an O-rating of 105.0; Hanlan, 107.4. Very little difference.
It goes to show two things: one, I don't know anything about what goes into a player's O-rating, though I'm rashly assuming that crazy things like shooting and assists and turnovers are involved. And two, whatever is in the secret sauce, it rates Perrantes's contributions to the offense pretty highly.
Perrantes has a quality to his play that you can spot even if you don't know you're spotting it. That's what helped drive a narrative last year that was barely borne out on the stat sheet - that Perrantes asserted himself more, shot more, and picked up the scoring pace to help UVA's offense cope with the loss of Justin Anderson. He didn't do much of that, actually, not so's you'd notice if all you did was peruse stat sheets. But it looked like he did, and perception is reality.
So far, the Cali-cool image he projects has been a perfect fit with Tony's methodical approach to offense. There's an ever-so-slight backwards lean that he sometimes projects in pictures of him making the opening pass of the play setup. Tony hasn't minded him setting an offensive pace that uses all 35 seconds of the shot clock. But he will now, because that 31st second is a doozy. With a tad bit more urgency required on the offensive end, Perrantes will have to adjust. Move a little quicker. Maybe save some time on the front end by not always walking the ball up the court like a stroll through the gardens. The adaptability of Perrantes's game will be challenged this year, and because of the way he can project on the flow of the offense, how he responds will set the tone.
Oh, and it'd be cool if he could improve his shooting a little this year, too. /every critique of every point guard ever.
#33 - Jack Salt - rFr. C
UVa's New Zealand import will get to take the court this year after a redshirt year spent bulking up and getting used to the pace of American basketball. Salt added 15 pounds, which is bad news for opponents because every report we've ever seen says he likes cracking skulls.
Also, literally every story I've read about him this year - and there are a lot because a yet-to-be-unwrapped 6'11 Kiwi is a curiosity worth finding out about - mentions that he sets brutal screens. It seems random. I don't know what to make of this. It could be bad news in disguise - if he were playing Bad Boys defense with eight nasty streaks or was a sudden scoring revelation, they'd write about that instead. But it could be secretly really good news - because part of the reason Will Sherrill became a regular player was his diligence in setting screens.
The safest bet is that Mike Tobey is still a very skilled player, much more experienced, and going to take up 95% of the minutes that call for a true center. It might seem that Salt and Jarred Reuter are competing for the last of the big-man minutes, but I doubt that because Reuter could easily be on the court at the same time as Tobey; Salt never will. I think whatever meaningful minutes Salt gets will be in cases where Tobey's in foul trouble and the opponent has trotted out a true center of their own.
I also think that even though he won't be seen much, there's major cult-hero potential here. If he's as powerfully physical as all the reports say, somebody is either going to get whacked on a perfectly legal screen, or have a shot ruthlessly rejected after Salt roots himself into place in the post, and people will notice. What I'm hoping for is a future where Salt and Reuter are both patrolling the middle like a couple of roughneck bastards and everyone just hates them. For this year, it'd be cool if we got a few glimpses of that.
#51 - Darius Thompson - rSo. SG
Here's redshirt number two from last year, another Christmas present to open on November 13. With Malcolm Brogdon in charge, the chances that Thompson breaks into the starting lineup are zilch. But like Anthony Gill before him, Thompson is a potential really big deal.
Possibly the most athletic player on the team, Thompson brings a slashing, driving threat that's been a little lacking in Tony's tenure. Truth is, in his year at Tennessee he was a lousy shooter. Two or three, it didn't matter, he couldn't hit it if it was a jump shot. But he also took 71% of his shots at the rim....where he also was a lousy shooter at just .369. And all that was two years ago. If those numbers improve, and you ought to believe they will to at least some extent, Thompson has the chance to be a tremendous bench scorer and a Sixth Man of the Year candidate.
Thompson will probably be asked to play the point some, where he'd give opponents a completely different look from Perrantes. Perrantes is smallish, conservative on defense, and more likely to shoot a jumper than drive. Thompson will try to use his excellent length and athleticism to jump passing lanes, and look to drive on offense. Justin Anderson was a tremendously important player because his athleticism scared opponents and forced them to give the rest of the team room to operate. Thompson can look to partly fill those shoes this year.
#1 - Austin Nichols - Jr. PF
#2 - Justice Bartley - Fr. SG
#24 - Caid Kirven - Sr. PF
#25 - Mamadi Diakite - Fr. SF
#34 - Jeff Jones - Jr. SF
Here's the end of the bench - the walk-ons and redshirts. UVA will have the most talented non-playing players in the country. Kirven and Jones are familiar sights at the end of blowouts and do an admirable job of keeping comical scores comical. Bartley brings a fair amount of talent; he turned down a scholarship at UNLV (that due to his late appearance on the recruiting scene would've had to wait til his sophomore year) in order to study business at UVA.
And of course, the redshirts. Nichols is coming off a season where he was one of the top ten shot blockers in the country (efficiency stats) and a starter at Memphis - possibly the top prize of the transfer circuit this summer. Diakite was planning on playing a prep year, but UVA convinced him to essentially prep under Tony Bennett instead. By some accounts he's the second-best athlete on the team and UVA is redshirting him just because they can. They'll stay in the shadows for a year and then help cushion the blow of losing four rotation seniors after this season.
Showing posts with label salt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label salt. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Wednesday, May 6, 2015
hoops in review, part 2
The much-coveted hoops review continues with the second half of the roster.
#11 - Evan Nolte - Jr. SF
Preview quote: "Nolte's an interesting case. It's very fair to say that other than the freshmen who we haven't seen at all, he has the least predictable role on the team, and even then, it's not like we don't know what Devon Hall or Jack Salt are here for."
In the preview I labeled Nolte a power forward after some deliberation. Here he's a small forward. That about sums things up, really. Nolte was an odd duck of a player this year, with no particular defined role and lots of minutes regardless. He was the only player to cross over between the frontcourt and backcourt, playing about a quarter of his minutes as one of two bigs rather than one of three guards.
Those minutes were weirdly situated, too. Nolte's playing time was circling the drain midseason, with a stretch of four games where he played six or fewer minutes. He was down to three against UNC. Then Justin Anderson broke his hand, and Nolte immediately jumped to 24 that very game. He would play almost two-thirds of his season total minutes in the final one-third of the season, starting every game but the last and regularly topping 30 minutes on the court.
This was to the consternation of quite a few fans. Nolte's most readily apparent role was to shoot threes, which was supposed to be the thing he did best. Instead he had a completely horrible year in that area. The whole deal was eerily reminiscent of Sammy Zeglinski, who caught way more heat than he deserved because he wasn't shooting as well as people thought he should. (I should've anticipated this. Nolte also took totally unwarranted heat for his sweet choice of shirt during summer run-from-the-cops shenanigans.)
Me, I get irritated at fans who act as if the only thing that matters is shooting. Nolte was in the game for so many minutes all of a sudden because he was getting it on the defensive end. I also wrote before the season that Nolte was due for a big jump in play, and though nothing he did on a stat sheet would've indicated such a leap, his defense was, somehow, outstanding. They don't hand out defensive all-conference honors for stubbornly staying in front of people, but one thing you hardly ever saw was Nolte getting beat on the ball. It involved the adoption of a really goofy-looking defensive stance where Nolte made himself much shorter than his 6'8" frame and stuck his hands out palms-forward, but that right there was your leap ahead: on-ball defense and the invisible game.
I don't think we'll see 30 minutes a game for Nolte next year, but then I also don't think he'll shoot under .300 from three again. It didn't look like there was anything wrong with his shot; they just didn't fall. But what he did do is establish himself in Tony's mind as a player well within the circle of trust; up til the last month of this season, you'd have wondered about that. Last year the prediction was that Nolte was one player in danger of seeing his minutes dwindle if he didn't develop a dependable skill set. Like it or not, he did that. It showed a bit late, but he did that; next year, as a senior, the minutes will be there.
#13 - Anthony Gill - Jr. PF
Preview quote: "[H]e should find himself in the conversation for some all-ACC recognition if all goes well."
All did go well, and this is the simplest, most straightforward assessment we'll do on the whole team. Gill moved into the starting lineup this season and had little trouble with the transition. His efficiency probably exposed some vestiges of pacism among the all-ACC voters; he was KenPom's #7 player in the country (a rating admittedly heavily influenced by team quality - but then, so is all-America voting) but only third-team all-ACC.
Gill was actually UVA's most efficient offensive player, nosing out Justin Anderson. Like a lot of the players on this team, he's terrifically strong, and he used that muscle to be a terror on the offensive boards; draw copious fouls; and make 58% of his shots. He was at his best going straight at the rim. He liked to try fallaway shots as well (especially, and very maddeningly, against MSU) and they weren't nearly as effective as a simple bull-rush at the rim. Gill has enough quickness to start the move, and then use his strength to finish and/or draw the foul.
Not much to overanalyze here, really. Gill was the offensive centerpiece of the frontcourt, a role he stepped into like a pair of slippers. Darion Atkins had such a tremendous year that he was the clear focus on defense, but next year that'll probably be Gill too. He'll be one of the conference's top returning players next year.
#15 - Malcolm Brogdon - Jr. SG
Preview quote: "[T]here's every reason to expect him to become not just UVA's marquee player, but one of the ACC's as well. ... [F]irst team all-ACC is the expectation."
Mission accomplished. Brogdon was one of four players to be a unanimous or near-consensus pick for the media's first team (the others were Jahlil Okafor, Jerian Grant, and Rakeem Christmas.) Brogdon was also on the all-defensive team, making him and Christmas the two best all-around players in the conference. Scoring is what usually gets you a lot of attention, but Brogdon was rightfully recognized as an elite on-ball defender. He's really big for a guard, so going around him was difficult, and he's quite probably the strongest guard in the conference. Best example of his skills: Wake Forest tried to use Codi Miller-McIntyre to break him down one-on-one for the game-winning basket, and Miller-McIntyre never made it past the key.
Offensively, Brogdon is actually even better than he thinks he is. To be specific, his ballhandling and driving. He doesn't lack at all for confidence in his jump shot, and in fact has the really maddening habit of shooting them with his toes on the three-point line. He'll come off a curl, or he'll take a step-back jumper, and it'll be from a distance that might as well be a three if you're gonna shoot from out there, but isn't. Next year I hope he starts his move six inches further from the basket.
But I digress. Brogdon doesn't have a lot of deception in his driving game, but he's so strong he doesn't need much. The guy can finish through a ton of contact. He has it in him to be that clutch scorer who's there when you absolutely, positively need a bucket, and he's flashed that ability. If he figures that out, UVA might not lose a close game all year.
#21 - Isaiah Wilkins - Fr. PF
Preview quote: "In his commitment profile I called him a Swiss Army knife of a player; he doesn't blow you away with shooting range or power and strength, but he's athletic, long-armed, and energetic, and should do a nice job on defense as long as he's got the system down enough to be out there."
I think that sums up Wilkins's season awfully well, actually. He started off against JMU with a game that drew a ton of praise for its all-around contributions: 8 points, 5 boards, 3 assists, 2 blocks, and 2 steals in 19 minutes. Almost all those numbers were season highs, as it turned out, but Wilkins had far too much depth in front of him to be in for 20 minutes every night.
His usage was a little erratic - he played 14 minutes in a tight one against Notre Dame after sitting the last three completely out, for example. And his offensive game wasn't well-developed at all. But he sported - with small-sample-size warnings applying - an 8.7 block percentage, and had 2.7 blocks per 40 minutes. The fewer the minutes, the worse the extrapolation, so that's a number to be taken with many grains of salt, but even so, he had 18 blocked shots - which was two more than Anthony Gill in less than 1/3 the playing time.
So I think he had a perfectly acceptable year, which I don't mean as damnation with faint praise. Playing the one spot where a freshman would've had the hardest time standing out, he managed to at least carve a niche. Tony and the staff are starting to work on a real nice track record developing big men - just look at Mitchell and Atkins - and Wilkins should be due for a big increase in responsibilities next year.
#32 - London Perrantes - So. PG
Preview quote: "The bottom line is, UVA has as veteran a point guard as you'll find in the league - and he's a sophomore."
The narrative was that after the electric scorer and deadly shooter broke his hand and had to sit, the normally pass-first point guard starting take a more assertive role in the scoring department, helping to shore up the business of getting points for the scoreboard. It sure seemed that way. It wasn't quite.
Perrantes did do that, a little bit. He took about two shots more per game post-Justin-injury than he did before it. But his three-point shooting percentage took a nosedive from last season - which surprised me, because, again, it didn't seem like it. He made up for it by being a better shooter from two and upping his assists, but the overall numbers picture doesn't line up with the narrative.
Which is why we rely on numbers, but we're not a slave to them. Point guardery isn't always about the numbers, not even the assists. Perrantes did assert himself more than last year. He made himself more visible, more available. He was more active without the ball. There wasn't, on the stat sheet, a huge difference in his play from last year, but he developed all the same.
#33 - Jack Salt - Fr. C
Preview quote: "The likely contribution is as a practice body."
Which was the case; Salt, as expected, redshirted. Details on how that year went depend on who you ask. I've seen reports ranging from "not progressing as hoped" to "Tony absolutely loves what he sees." With Mike Tobey a senior next year, I think Salt's career will continue to be on a slow start. But we'll at least get a few chances to see what we have in the big Kiwi.
*******************************************
So, a quick look at the rotation for next year. The Hoos have to replace about 28 minutes in the frontcourt and 24 minutes in the backcourt. It's tempting to say we already saw what replacing Justin Anderson will look like, but Tony, like most coaches, had settled into a rotation he liked by the late stages of the season, and simply extended a few players a few minutes each and gave Evan Nolte the rest. Next year is a bit of a clean slate. Devon Hall will have a chance to reassert himself, and Darius Thompson (who some reports say is easily the quickest ballhandler on the team and a great candidate to add a slashing dimension that wasn't really there last year) will have every opportunity as well. And Marial Shayok could see a large boost from his 14.6 minutes as well. It's a crowded situation.
The bigs don't have it any easier. Gill is the only one with a guaranteed allotment. Mike Tobey will play, of course, but he might stick around 17 minutes or he might get ten more. Wilkins should become more of a regular, and Salt and Jarred Reuter, who even knows? It's a surprising amount of unknowns for a team that returns most of its players. The fact that there are so many possibilities is a showcase for the remarkable depth.
#11 - Evan Nolte - Jr. SF
Preview quote: "Nolte's an interesting case. It's very fair to say that other than the freshmen who we haven't seen at all, he has the least predictable role on the team, and even then, it's not like we don't know what Devon Hall or Jack Salt are here for."
In the preview I labeled Nolte a power forward after some deliberation. Here he's a small forward. That about sums things up, really. Nolte was an odd duck of a player this year, with no particular defined role and lots of minutes regardless. He was the only player to cross over between the frontcourt and backcourt, playing about a quarter of his minutes as one of two bigs rather than one of three guards.
Those minutes were weirdly situated, too. Nolte's playing time was circling the drain midseason, with a stretch of four games where he played six or fewer minutes. He was down to three against UNC. Then Justin Anderson broke his hand, and Nolte immediately jumped to 24 that very game. He would play almost two-thirds of his season total minutes in the final one-third of the season, starting every game but the last and regularly topping 30 minutes on the court.
This was to the consternation of quite a few fans. Nolte's most readily apparent role was to shoot threes, which was supposed to be the thing he did best. Instead he had a completely horrible year in that area. The whole deal was eerily reminiscent of Sammy Zeglinski, who caught way more heat than he deserved because he wasn't shooting as well as people thought he should. (I should've anticipated this. Nolte also took totally unwarranted heat for his sweet choice of shirt during summer run-from-the-cops shenanigans.)
Me, I get irritated at fans who act as if the only thing that matters is shooting. Nolte was in the game for so many minutes all of a sudden because he was getting it on the defensive end. I also wrote before the season that Nolte was due for a big jump in play, and though nothing he did on a stat sheet would've indicated such a leap, his defense was, somehow, outstanding. They don't hand out defensive all-conference honors for stubbornly staying in front of people, but one thing you hardly ever saw was Nolte getting beat on the ball. It involved the adoption of a really goofy-looking defensive stance where Nolte made himself much shorter than his 6'8" frame and stuck his hands out palms-forward, but that right there was your leap ahead: on-ball defense and the invisible game.
I don't think we'll see 30 minutes a game for Nolte next year, but then I also don't think he'll shoot under .300 from three again. It didn't look like there was anything wrong with his shot; they just didn't fall. But what he did do is establish himself in Tony's mind as a player well within the circle of trust; up til the last month of this season, you'd have wondered about that. Last year the prediction was that Nolte was one player in danger of seeing his minutes dwindle if he didn't develop a dependable skill set. Like it or not, he did that. It showed a bit late, but he did that; next year, as a senior, the minutes will be there.
#13 - Anthony Gill - Jr. PF
Preview quote: "[H]e should find himself in the conversation for some all-ACC recognition if all goes well."
All did go well, and this is the simplest, most straightforward assessment we'll do on the whole team. Gill moved into the starting lineup this season and had little trouble with the transition. His efficiency probably exposed some vestiges of pacism among the all-ACC voters; he was KenPom's #7 player in the country (a rating admittedly heavily influenced by team quality - but then, so is all-America voting) but only third-team all-ACC.
Gill was actually UVA's most efficient offensive player, nosing out Justin Anderson. Like a lot of the players on this team, he's terrifically strong, and he used that muscle to be a terror on the offensive boards; draw copious fouls; and make 58% of his shots. He was at his best going straight at the rim. He liked to try fallaway shots as well (especially, and very maddeningly, against MSU) and they weren't nearly as effective as a simple bull-rush at the rim. Gill has enough quickness to start the move, and then use his strength to finish and/or draw the foul.
Not much to overanalyze here, really. Gill was the offensive centerpiece of the frontcourt, a role he stepped into like a pair of slippers. Darion Atkins had such a tremendous year that he was the clear focus on defense, but next year that'll probably be Gill too. He'll be one of the conference's top returning players next year.
#15 - Malcolm Brogdon - Jr. SG
Preview quote: "[T]here's every reason to expect him to become not just UVA's marquee player, but one of the ACC's as well. ... [F]irst team all-ACC is the expectation."
Mission accomplished. Brogdon was one of four players to be a unanimous or near-consensus pick for the media's first team (the others were Jahlil Okafor, Jerian Grant, and Rakeem Christmas.) Brogdon was also on the all-defensive team, making him and Christmas the two best all-around players in the conference. Scoring is what usually gets you a lot of attention, but Brogdon was rightfully recognized as an elite on-ball defender. He's really big for a guard, so going around him was difficult, and he's quite probably the strongest guard in the conference. Best example of his skills: Wake Forest tried to use Codi Miller-McIntyre to break him down one-on-one for the game-winning basket, and Miller-McIntyre never made it past the key.
Offensively, Brogdon is actually even better than he thinks he is. To be specific, his ballhandling and driving. He doesn't lack at all for confidence in his jump shot, and in fact has the really maddening habit of shooting them with his toes on the three-point line. He'll come off a curl, or he'll take a step-back jumper, and it'll be from a distance that might as well be a three if you're gonna shoot from out there, but isn't. Next year I hope he starts his move six inches further from the basket.
But I digress. Brogdon doesn't have a lot of deception in his driving game, but he's so strong he doesn't need much. The guy can finish through a ton of contact. He has it in him to be that clutch scorer who's there when you absolutely, positively need a bucket, and he's flashed that ability. If he figures that out, UVA might not lose a close game all year.
#21 - Isaiah Wilkins - Fr. PF
Preview quote: "In his commitment profile I called him a Swiss Army knife of a player; he doesn't blow you away with shooting range or power and strength, but he's athletic, long-armed, and energetic, and should do a nice job on defense as long as he's got the system down enough to be out there."
I think that sums up Wilkins's season awfully well, actually. He started off against JMU with a game that drew a ton of praise for its all-around contributions: 8 points, 5 boards, 3 assists, 2 blocks, and 2 steals in 19 minutes. Almost all those numbers were season highs, as it turned out, but Wilkins had far too much depth in front of him to be in for 20 minutes every night.
His usage was a little erratic - he played 14 minutes in a tight one against Notre Dame after sitting the last three completely out, for example. And his offensive game wasn't well-developed at all. But he sported - with small-sample-size warnings applying - an 8.7 block percentage, and had 2.7 blocks per 40 minutes. The fewer the minutes, the worse the extrapolation, so that's a number to be taken with many grains of salt, but even so, he had 18 blocked shots - which was two more than Anthony Gill in less than 1/3 the playing time.
So I think he had a perfectly acceptable year, which I don't mean as damnation with faint praise. Playing the one spot where a freshman would've had the hardest time standing out, he managed to at least carve a niche. Tony and the staff are starting to work on a real nice track record developing big men - just look at Mitchell and Atkins - and Wilkins should be due for a big increase in responsibilities next year.
#32 - London Perrantes - So. PG
Preview quote: "The bottom line is, UVA has as veteran a point guard as you'll find in the league - and he's a sophomore."
The narrative was that after the electric scorer and deadly shooter broke his hand and had to sit, the normally pass-first point guard starting take a more assertive role in the scoring department, helping to shore up the business of getting points for the scoreboard. It sure seemed that way. It wasn't quite.
Perrantes did do that, a little bit. He took about two shots more per game post-Justin-injury than he did before it. But his three-point shooting percentage took a nosedive from last season - which surprised me, because, again, it didn't seem like it. He made up for it by being a better shooter from two and upping his assists, but the overall numbers picture doesn't line up with the narrative.
Which is why we rely on numbers, but we're not a slave to them. Point guardery isn't always about the numbers, not even the assists. Perrantes did assert himself more than last year. He made himself more visible, more available. He was more active without the ball. There wasn't, on the stat sheet, a huge difference in his play from last year, but he developed all the same.
#33 - Jack Salt - Fr. C
Preview quote: "The likely contribution is as a practice body."
Which was the case; Salt, as expected, redshirted. Details on how that year went depend on who you ask. I've seen reports ranging from "not progressing as hoped" to "Tony absolutely loves what he sees." With Mike Tobey a senior next year, I think Salt's career will continue to be on a slow start. But we'll at least get a few chances to see what we have in the big Kiwi.
*******************************************
So, a quick look at the rotation for next year. The Hoos have to replace about 28 minutes in the frontcourt and 24 minutes in the backcourt. It's tempting to say we already saw what replacing Justin Anderson will look like, but Tony, like most coaches, had settled into a rotation he liked by the late stages of the season, and simply extended a few players a few minutes each and gave Evan Nolte the rest. Next year is a bit of a clean slate. Devon Hall will have a chance to reassert himself, and Darius Thompson (who some reports say is easily the quickest ballhandler on the team and a great candidate to add a slashing dimension that wasn't really there last year) will have every opportunity as well. And Marial Shayok could see a large boost from his 14.6 minutes as well. It's a crowded situation.
The bigs don't have it any easier. Gill is the only one with a guaranteed allotment. Mike Tobey will play, of course, but he might stick around 17 minutes or he might get ten more. Wilkins should become more of a regular, and Salt and Jarred Reuter, who even knows? It's a surprising amount of unknowns for a team that returns most of its players. The fact that there are so many possibilities is a showcase for the remarkable depth.
Monday, November 17, 2014
first impressions
If the Hoos are gonna do anything this year that even remotely resembles last year, it'll take important contributions from freshmen. We knew that going in; the exciting thing was finding out who could do what, and who would step up the highest. Tony Bennett likes to keep things under heavy wraps during the fall, so this weekend was our first really good look at how he planned on using these guys and what they could do.
Obvious and screaming caveat about quality of competition remains. Neither JMU nor NSU provide anything resembling a real test. We might be able to make better predictions a week from now, with the GW game in the books. But this post is going to be largely about comparing the freshmen to each other, so this is still plenty useful.
The rotation is the most important thing, and it has very little to do with the competition. Tony gave us a lot of info after the Norfolk State game. Still figuring things out, yes, of course - Tony has always used the early part of the season to figure things out, and doing so is a feature, not a bug. Basketball teams are chemistry experiments, especially with so many new ingredients. He always manages to have things right by the time an ACC opponent rolls into town.
Second, he mentioned a 10-man rotation, at least for now. Jack Salt didn't play a minute, even when the bench was emptied, so it don't take a rocket surgeon to riddle that one out. B.J. Stith got a few minutes, but some of them came with the walk-ons, and the rest of them in that mid-first-half area where the back-end guys go in sometimes. With a 10-man rotation, and 10 scholarship players getting double-digit minutes and the other one getting a handful, it shouldn't be hard to figure that out either. Stith is the odd man out of the rotation, at least for now. He'll almost certainly pick up a bagload of DNP-CDs this year.
(Tangent: I don't mind this, by the way. Most everyone's instinct is to say that if he's not going to give us meaningful minutes, he should redshirt, end of discussion. Yes, it makes sense to want that fifth year out of him, but keep in mind this, too: basketball players transfer at the drop of a hat, and always think they should be playing. Most programs try to keep everyone happy by juggling 13 players, and sometimes that works and usually it doesn't, and players leave. Coaches tend to over-promise when they're recruiting. Tony's never anything but up front with these guys, and doesn't redshirt anyone who's not OK with it. If someone tells him they don't want to redshirt and they'll take their chances with whatever minutes Tony dishes out, and Tony redshirts them anyway, well.... five years is better than four, but four is better than two.)
So that leaves three newcomers to the rotation: Hall, Shayok, and Wilkins. Hall appears to be following the lead of London Perrantes a bit, by which I mean he looks for his own shot about as often and at similar times. But I think there are signs he'll be considered the superior defender by season's end. One of those signs is probably the "5" in the JMU game steals column. He's more aggressive than Perrantes, who's one of the team's more conservative defenders. Getting five steals while only fouling once, that's outstanding.
Shayok, now. Main thing I thought he showed off was an ability to score a lot of different ways. He wasn't afraid to launch a three, and he looked comfortable going to the rim too. "Versatile" was the word on him, and he looked it. Everyone from Tony on down warned against falling in love with the three-ball after the NSU game, but the fact is, it's nice to know they might actually be able to shoot it.
Shayok looked pretty good on defense, too, but so far my favorite of the three main newcomers is Wilkins. And defense, of course, is the reason. Wilkins shot down two NSU attempts in one possession, but that wasn't my favorite play - an NSU player attempting to drive met with a Wilkins shot-block without Wilkins even having to move his feet. Yes, it was my imagination, but I swear I saw Wilkins give the guy a "really?" look before tossing the shot back where it came from. This is to say nothing of his JMU stat line, one which made the Swiss Army knife characterization look awfully prescient. Wilkins could be a big piece of the replacement puzzle for Akil Mitchell.
The missing link in all this analysis is that nothing the Dukes or Spartans did was able to expose any real weaknesses on these guys. It's easy and unfair to get swept away in expectations. But the truth is, Tony was able to use his freshmen and not see a scary-looking drop in quality of play. That's reassuring. Shayok and Wilkins looked the best of the bunch, but they all looked like they belonged.
Obvious and screaming caveat about quality of competition remains. Neither JMU nor NSU provide anything resembling a real test. We might be able to make better predictions a week from now, with the GW game in the books. But this post is going to be largely about comparing the freshmen to each other, so this is still plenty useful.
The rotation is the most important thing, and it has very little to do with the competition. Tony gave us a lot of info after the Norfolk State game. Still figuring things out, yes, of course - Tony has always used the early part of the season to figure things out, and doing so is a feature, not a bug. Basketball teams are chemistry experiments, especially with so many new ingredients. He always manages to have things right by the time an ACC opponent rolls into town.
Second, he mentioned a 10-man rotation, at least for now. Jack Salt didn't play a minute, even when the bench was emptied, so it don't take a rocket surgeon to riddle that one out. B.J. Stith got a few minutes, but some of them came with the walk-ons, and the rest of them in that mid-first-half area where the back-end guys go in sometimes. With a 10-man rotation, and 10 scholarship players getting double-digit minutes and the other one getting a handful, it shouldn't be hard to figure that out either. Stith is the odd man out of the rotation, at least for now. He'll almost certainly pick up a bagload of DNP-CDs this year.
(Tangent: I don't mind this, by the way. Most everyone's instinct is to say that if he's not going to give us meaningful minutes, he should redshirt, end of discussion. Yes, it makes sense to want that fifth year out of him, but keep in mind this, too: basketball players transfer at the drop of a hat, and always think they should be playing. Most programs try to keep everyone happy by juggling 13 players, and sometimes that works and usually it doesn't, and players leave. Coaches tend to over-promise when they're recruiting. Tony's never anything but up front with these guys, and doesn't redshirt anyone who's not OK with it. If someone tells him they don't want to redshirt and they'll take their chances with whatever minutes Tony dishes out, and Tony redshirts them anyway, well.... five years is better than four, but four is better than two.)
So that leaves three newcomers to the rotation: Hall, Shayok, and Wilkins. Hall appears to be following the lead of London Perrantes a bit, by which I mean he looks for his own shot about as often and at similar times. But I think there are signs he'll be considered the superior defender by season's end. One of those signs is probably the "5" in the JMU game steals column. He's more aggressive than Perrantes, who's one of the team's more conservative defenders. Getting five steals while only fouling once, that's outstanding.
Shayok, now. Main thing I thought he showed off was an ability to score a lot of different ways. He wasn't afraid to launch a three, and he looked comfortable going to the rim too. "Versatile" was the word on him, and he looked it. Everyone from Tony on down warned against falling in love with the three-ball after the NSU game, but the fact is, it's nice to know they might actually be able to shoot it.
Shayok looked pretty good on defense, too, but so far my favorite of the three main newcomers is Wilkins. And defense, of course, is the reason. Wilkins shot down two NSU attempts in one possession, but that wasn't my favorite play - an NSU player attempting to drive met with a Wilkins shot-block without Wilkins even having to move his feet. Yes, it was my imagination, but I swear I saw Wilkins give the guy a "really?" look before tossing the shot back where it came from. This is to say nothing of his JMU stat line, one which made the Swiss Army knife characterization look awfully prescient. Wilkins could be a big piece of the replacement puzzle for Akil Mitchell.
The missing link in all this analysis is that nothing the Dukes or Spartans did was able to expose any real weaknesses on these guys. It's easy and unfair to get swept away in expectations. But the truth is, Tony was able to use his freshmen and not see a scary-looking drop in quality of play. That's reassuring. Shayok and Wilkins looked the best of the bunch, but they all looked like they belonged.
Monday, November 10, 2014
2014 hoops preview: players, part 2
It's a bye week in football, so we get to talk basketball all week long. Don't act like you're not excited. I'll have a couple quick things on the FSU game at the end here. Today we'll continue the series on each player. Tomorrow, the OOC schedule, and on Wednesday or Thursday, another look back at the ACC itself. Stuff gets real on Friday, but sadly that game isn't televised, so most of us will have to wait til Sunday to get our first look.
- Both Lambert and Johns toss an interception. Johns didn't play, so I can't take credit for this one.
- Lambert has better stats across the board - yardage, completion percentage, yards per attempt. But I sure can for this.
- Winston throws for over 300 yards. Nope - Winston was limited to 261 yards and a pretty pedestrian (for him) 7.5 yards per throw. He outplayed Lambert, but - not by much at all.
- Greene absolutely torches the Hoos, with double-digit receptions. Greene literally had a career day, his 13 receptions being a career high, and that's saying something for the all-time receptions leader at FSU.
Pretty good day on the predictions here, going 3-for-5. Stats for the season:
20-for-50 on specifics (40%)
6-3 straight up (W)
4-3-1 ATS (L - the Hoos covered when here I thought they'd get blown out. Nice job taking advantage of turnovers, but otherwise nothing to speak of on offense.)
#11 - Evan Nolte - Jr. PF
Nolte's an interesting case. It's very fair to say that other than the freshmen who we haven't seen at all, he has the least predictable role on the team, and even then, it's not like we don't know what Devon Hall or Jack Salt are here for.
I even hesitated as to whether to call him a power forward or a small forward, but based on his usage during the tourney last year, power forward it is. Nolte basically spent most of the season living up to the preseason expectations of reduced usage and a hazy role; his minutes were cut down to less than half of what they'd been the year before. Then the tourney rolled around and all of a sudden it was like he'd never left. Clutch shots against Coastal, posterization of some Memphis dude, and major-league defensive responsibilities against MSU, in which he looked like he'd been doing this power forward thing all his life.
Did we see a true metamorphosis, or just a well-timed hot streak? Hard to say. Nolte is one of the classicest tweeners you'll ever see, and what still remains to be seen as he goes into the second half of his career is whether he's on the good or bad side of that description. Both his defense and offense are part of that equation. We know he can shoot from deep, and he'll probably never be a back-to-the-basket player, but he's also flashed an occasional midrange game that would come in awfully handy if he develops it. And on defense, we know he's not all that quick, but if he can defend in the post a little, he can be one of those really frustrating floor stretchers on the other end. What he can't do is get knocked around on defense and expect to float to the edges on offense.
We'll see if he's hit the weight room. Against MSU he played harder than we've seen him play in two years, and the results were a really pleasant surprise. I think the most likely outcome for Nolte is that it takes him all year to really be comfortable as a banger and as an elder statesman on the team, and that his senior year is when he really hits full bloom. But Tony has a way of coaxing development out of his players, and you shouldn't be surprised to see that timeline accelerated. Mark these words: if UVA has another really stratospheric season like last year, it'll be in no small part because Nolte became a whole new ballplayer.
#13 - Anthony Gill - Jr. PF
On a points-per-minute basis, Gill was the most efficient scorer on the team last year, and it's no wonder. He turned out to be just as advertised from his redshirt season, and usually got to go up against second-stringers, which was never a fair matchup. Better yet, you could see his defense improve as the season wore on, and his minutes saw a parallel uptick.
The obvious question here is how well he handles the near-certain move to the starting lineup. He'll be asked to guard all those guys that Akil Mitchell guarded so well last year, and score on them too, in a way that wasn't asked of Mitchell as much. He's not the athlete Mitchell was, but he's quite a bit stronger, and his defensive style will definitely reflect that.
It's a really simple equation: all that stuff you did last year, do it against better players. But Gill is entering his fourth season in a college program, and there's little doubt he can handle it. He could see up to an extra eight minutes a game (though about five is more likely); we may not see a corresponding increase in all his numbers, but they'll still go up, and he should find himself in the conversation for some all-ACC recognition if all goes well.
#15 - Malcolm Brogdon - Jr. SG
Pacism is slowly evaporating from national analyses. Maybe not so slowly now that Tony's choke-you-to-death style has proven capable of elite results. Proof: Malcolm Brogdon is 22nd in ESPN's countdown of the top 100 players in the country. "No weaknesses" is their blunt assessment.
So a lot is expected of him. With Joe Harris gone, this is Uncle Malcolm's team. Like Gill, he's entering his fourth year of college ball, and has developed into one of the physically strongest backcourt players in the league, maybe the strongest. He'll be asked to score from everywhere, with the focus of the defense squarely upon him. Considering that he made some cameo appearances in KenPom's top ten rating - as in, players in the whole country - there's every reason to expect him to become not just UVA's marquee player, but one of the ACC's as well. He doesn't wear the right shade of blue, so his path to ACC POY is steeper than for certain others, but first team all-ACC is the expectation.
#21 - Isaiah Wilkins - Fr. PF
Wilkins has a unique challenge among freshmen, in that he has more established players in his way than the rest of them. Some of them (Stith/Shayok) are in each others' way, others (Hall, Salt) have a defined position with only one other player (albeit a core rotation member) in front. Wilkins is a power forward, which means that Gill, Atkins, and most likely Nolte are all squarely in front of him in the pecking order.
The good news for him: Jack Salt is a likely redshirt, and Tony's nine-man rotation tends to prefer four backcourt and five frontcourt guys. Makes sense. Last year's five-man frontcourt rotation saw three players (Mitchell, Gill, Tobey) get the lions' share of the minutes, and Nolte and Atkins pick up a few each. Well, now there's 25 of Mitchell's minutes to figure out, and I think you can count on Wilkins getting a few of them.
Probably at first it'll be one of those mid-first-half deals where you toss a guy in where it's not really crunch time and you need to keep your starters fresh. In his commitment profile I called him a Swiss Army knife of a player; he doesn't blow you away with shooting range or power and strength, but he's athletic, long-armed, and energetic, and should do a nice job on defense as long as he's got the system down enough to be out there. There's a lot of veteran experience in front of him and he'd have to pull a shocker to start chipping into their playing time significantly this year, but I think there's a little bit of an Akil Mitchell to him, and we know how that turned out.
#32 - London Perrantes - So. PG
The surprise of the season last year, for sure. It was almost immediately apparent, the effect Perrantes had on the offense when he took it over, and from the beginning it seemed like he belonged - largely because he acted like it. He didn't even make a single two-point shot in any of the first eight games and he still was making the offense run smoother than it had in a long time. And even when the offense changed after the Tennessee beatdown, it didn't faze Perrantes or his ability to make it go.
This is Brogdon's team, but with just the one year in the program, Perrantes is assuming a leadership role. (Though, one does wonder what on earth he did to get suspended for the JMU game. It's a little reminder that he's still not quite a finished product.) That leadership should also translate into a little more assertiveness with the ball. He's obviously a huge piece of the equation, but KenPom's algorithms credit him with the offensive impact of Taylor Barnette because he finishes so few possessions and shoots so little. Partly that's good - it means limited turnovers - but Perrantes was a .437 three-point shooter last year and ought to fire away a bit more.
He'll also need to improve his game inside the arc; his two-point percentage was an utterly dismal .319 and he wasn't much better at the rim, going just .355. I don't think he needs to take it to the rack more - the offense doesn't revolve around that - just better. But the bottom line is, UVA has as veteran a point guard as you'll find in the league - and he's a sophomore.
#33 - Jack Salt - Fr. C
Salt is considered the most likely player to redshirt, which is no surprise at all; he's a center, bigs are always behind the curve as compared to guards, and his New Zealand upbringing means he's had only a smattering of experience against the kind of competition his peers have faced.
So the likely contribution is as a practice body - and an awfully helpful one, because if half the reports of his physicality are true, our bigs will find the games a lot easier than practice. Reputation has it that Salt seems to think he's playing rugby out there. I'm OK with giving him a year with the strength and conditioning guys, maybe learn a little bit about what he can get away with. If by chance he does play this year, I still wouldn't expect much - heavy physicality isn't easily noticed on TV and not that useful in small doses. But I'm looking forward to the day a couple years down the road when he and Jarred Reuter team up to bludgeon opponents into handing over any and all potential rebounds.
**************************************************
Guessing at the rotation is probably a stupid thing to do, because the season has a way of really messing up predictions like that, but let's do it anyway. Minutes are in parentheses after the name.
Starters:
PG - Perrantes (30)
SG - Brogdon (35)
SF - Anderson (25)
PF - Gill (25)
C - Tobey (20)
Reserves:
Hall (13)
Shayok (12)
Atkins (15)
Nolte (15)
Wilkins (5)
That leaves Stith and Salt to redshirt. It also only adds up to 195 - spread the rest of the minutes around the back of the bench to account for blowouts and such.
**************************************************
Quick bullets on the FSU game:
-- Sending 260-pound Jack English out to play left tackle against Mario Edwards - it's amazing Greyson Lambert didn't get beaten into a fine powder. Nothing against English - but he's like the 8th-string tackle if we had an ideal roster, a converted tight end, and all in all the unfortunate poster boy for Mike London's abject failure to build an offensive line.
-- I like the fact that there's a wildcat play for David Watford, and kinda want to smack people who think that because he did a lousy job of throwing the football last year, it means he should never get on the field again in any capacity. I'm more than OK with finding a role for a guy who has probably earned it with attitude. But do the coaches take into account important details like, I dunno, down and distance, time on the game clock, or any kind of situational detail at all, when they call a play? Steve Fairchild has designed a good offense but I swear that if he played chess he would draw up these elaborate twenty-move gambits to capture the opposing bishops, and wouldn't save his king from check if the rules didn't require it. When he plays golf he probably has really nice clubs and drives off the tee exclusively with a sand wedge.
-- All three of Greyson Lambert's touchdown throws were beautimous, but the second one - to Darius Jennings - was really incredible, NFL stuff. FSU had them all covered well, except that the DB's backs were turned the whole time. On the throw to Jennings, Lambert spun it off to Jennings's outside shoulder and put it where Jennings could just go down and get it, and the DB, even had he realized the ball was coming, would've had an impossible time trying to twist and break it up. Levrone's catch was mostly just awesome work by Levrone; the Jennings one was all Lambert.
-- That said, I defended Lambert on the UNC screen pass interception, but I'm not gonna do it for his one pick this time. The poster child for a throw that should never have been made.
Prediction review:
- No UVA running back tops 50 yards rushing. Kevin Parks had 43, the most of any Hoo. Easy prediction to make.- Both Lambert and Johns toss an interception. Johns didn't play, so I can't take credit for this one.
- Lambert has better stats across the board - yardage, completion percentage, yards per attempt. But I sure can for this.
- Winston throws for over 300 yards. Nope - Winston was limited to 261 yards and a pretty pedestrian (for him) 7.5 yards per throw. He outplayed Lambert, but - not by much at all.
- Greene absolutely torches the Hoos, with double-digit receptions. Greene literally had a career day, his 13 receptions being a career high, and that's saying something for the all-time receptions leader at FSU.
Pretty good day on the predictions here, going 3-for-5. Stats for the season:
20-for-50 on specifics (40%)
6-3 straight up (W)
4-3-1 ATS (L - the Hoos covered when here I thought they'd get blown out. Nice job taking advantage of turnovers, but otherwise nothing to speak of on offense.)
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
the recruit: Jack Salt
Name: Jack Salt
Position: C
Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand
School: Westlake Boys School
Height: 6'10"
Weight: 230
24/7: N/R
ESPN: N/R
Rivals: N/R
Scout: N/R
Other offers: None
I don't routinely cover basketball recruiting, preferring almost exclusively to wait until someone actually commits before I say anything. There's a very long list of reasons why, but one of them is this: Months, even years, can pass, with nothing happening, and then everything you thought you knew goes out the window in two days.
Case in point: Two weeks ago, four-star and top-100 prospect Martin Geben, who liked UVA but liked Notre Dame more, was scheduled to visit Charlottesville for a trip that would hopefully flip-flop the two in his mind. Then the visit was cancelled - mutually, as it came out shortly thereafter - and Geben committed to the Irish.
The reason for the cancellation, as it turns out, is named Jack Salt, a name that lends itself to too-easy puns and - I think - sounds like something out of Mother Goose. ("Jack Salt could drink no malt / His wife could drink no gin / And so betwixt them both, it made / The barman quite chagrined.") Several times a year the recruiting gurus will say "there is a mystery recruit whose name I can't reveal yet." Rarely are they so adamant about saying positively nothing. Salt is a guy that Tony Bennett personally identified (it was his New Zealand connections that made this one possible), personally scouted, and personally recruited, and this was definitely one of those deals where the coaching staff wants CIA levels of secrecy lest someone else find out about the prize. Salt visited this past weekend, and that put the bow on top so that the secret could finally be let out.
We can go ahead and list Salt's resume - he played one season for the Super City Rangers of the NBL, New Zealand's professional league, but that's OK because his team is actually 100% amateur. He's played for the U-18 version of his national team, but sparingly, whereas for the Rangers, he's a starter. (Given that the Rangers don't pay their players, they're terrible, though.) And for the Rangers, he averaged 8.6 ppg and 5.4 rebounds in 18.5 minutes.
Doesn't tell us much about the quality of the competition, though. It's probably not much; the NBL requires all but two players on each team's roster to be native Kiwis, and the FIBA rankings place New Zealand 18th in the world, ahead of several countries (like Italy) that have no such rules. One of the teams in the NBL plays in a high school gym. We're talking about a league that's well below the competitiveness of the professional leagues in Europe and China.
That said, Bennett has a track record of finding players way down there. Kirk Penney played for him when he was an assistant at Wisconsin and later went on to a short NBA career; at Washington State, he brought in a player named Aron Baynes, who put up 12.7 ppg/7.5 rpg as a senior, and then took the long way to the NBA, where he appeared with the Spurs just this past season.
As we discussed with Isaiah Wilkins, there won't be much need for a freshman big in the rotation in 2014-15. You'll have Tobey, Gill, and Atkins playing major, major minutes. Wilkins might get a few minutes here and there; Salt may just redshirt. Even in his sophomore (or redshirt freshman) season, Tobey will be a senior and probably a major workhorse if things develop right, but that'll at least be when Salt starts to show up in the mix. Make no mistake, Bennett's rolling the dice a little on an investment in the long term, but he found a gem for Wazzu in Baynes, so he knew what he was doing when he shut the door on Geben.
Which, by the way, brings us to one final point: I'd been noting, in profile posts of recent years, that Tony appeared to be going over future scholarship limits, and the gurus dealt with this by telling people "the numbers will work themselves out." But here, the signs point to Tony being done with 2014 if he gets good news from Robert Johnson (or if not, and he goes after a consolation prize in someone like Jalen Hudson) - otherwise he wouldn't have shut down the pursuit of Geben. One more player will fill up the limit for 2014-15, and one more player is all it looks like Tony will take. I take this as a sign that Tony is no longer getting I-might-transfer vibes from his players. That can only be good news.
Position: C
Hometown: Auckland, New Zealand
School: Westlake Boys School
Height: 6'10"
Weight: 230
24/7: N/R
ESPN: N/R
Rivals: N/R
Scout: N/R
Other offers: None
I don't routinely cover basketball recruiting, preferring almost exclusively to wait until someone actually commits before I say anything. There's a very long list of reasons why, but one of them is this: Months, even years, can pass, with nothing happening, and then everything you thought you knew goes out the window in two days.
Case in point: Two weeks ago, four-star and top-100 prospect Martin Geben, who liked UVA but liked Notre Dame more, was scheduled to visit Charlottesville for a trip that would hopefully flip-flop the two in his mind. Then the visit was cancelled - mutually, as it came out shortly thereafter - and Geben committed to the Irish.
The reason for the cancellation, as it turns out, is named Jack Salt, a name that lends itself to too-easy puns and - I think - sounds like something out of Mother Goose. ("Jack Salt could drink no malt / His wife could drink no gin / And so betwixt them both, it made / The barman quite chagrined.") Several times a year the recruiting gurus will say "there is a mystery recruit whose name I can't reveal yet." Rarely are they so adamant about saying positively nothing. Salt is a guy that Tony Bennett personally identified (it was his New Zealand connections that made this one possible), personally scouted, and personally recruited, and this was definitely one of those deals where the coaching staff wants CIA levels of secrecy lest someone else find out about the prize. Salt visited this past weekend, and that put the bow on top so that the secret could finally be let out.
We can go ahead and list Salt's resume - he played one season for the Super City Rangers of the NBL, New Zealand's professional league, but that's OK because his team is actually 100% amateur. He's played for the U-18 version of his national team, but sparingly, whereas for the Rangers, he's a starter. (Given that the Rangers don't pay their players, they're terrible, though.) And for the Rangers, he averaged 8.6 ppg and 5.4 rebounds in 18.5 minutes.
Doesn't tell us much about the quality of the competition, though. It's probably not much; the NBL requires all but two players on each team's roster to be native Kiwis, and the FIBA rankings place New Zealand 18th in the world, ahead of several countries (like Italy) that have no such rules. One of the teams in the NBL plays in a high school gym. We're talking about a league that's well below the competitiveness of the professional leagues in Europe and China.
That said, Bennett has a track record of finding players way down there. Kirk Penney played for him when he was an assistant at Wisconsin and later went on to a short NBA career; at Washington State, he brought in a player named Aron Baynes, who put up 12.7 ppg/7.5 rpg as a senior, and then took the long way to the NBA, where he appeared with the Spurs just this past season.
As we discussed with Isaiah Wilkins, there won't be much need for a freshman big in the rotation in 2014-15. You'll have Tobey, Gill, and Atkins playing major, major minutes. Wilkins might get a few minutes here and there; Salt may just redshirt. Even in his sophomore (or redshirt freshman) season, Tobey will be a senior and probably a major workhorse if things develop right, but that'll at least be when Salt starts to show up in the mix. Make no mistake, Bennett's rolling the dice a little on an investment in the long term, but he found a gem for Wazzu in Baynes, so he knew what he was doing when he shut the door on Geben.
Which, by the way, brings us to one final point: I'd been noting, in profile posts of recent years, that Tony appeared to be going over future scholarship limits, and the gurus dealt with this by telling people "the numbers will work themselves out." But here, the signs point to Tony being done with 2014 if he gets good news from Robert Johnson (or if not, and he goes after a consolation prize in someone like Jalen Hudson) - otherwise he wouldn't have shut down the pursuit of Geben. One more player will fill up the limit for 2014-15, and one more player is all it looks like Tony will take. I take this as a sign that Tony is no longer getting I-might-transfer vibes from his players. That can only be good news.
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