23-24 Opponent Tracking Thread

No, I wasn't impressed at all. I'm surprised an agent was willing to devote their time on him.
I didn't think he was bad when he was playing. He had good handles for a 6'8 guy.

Coach Grant may have held him back a little.
 
No, I wasn't impressed at all. I'm surprised an agent was willing to devote their time on him.
He was a freshman thrown into playing out of position because of injuries and did a pretty respectable job. He kind of lost his way adjusting to a new roll when Smith and Elvis came back. He was definitely not ready for the NBA, but I think he has a lot of potential.
 
Inside sources are now predicting a slight chance that these recent developments may knock them all the way down to second place in the A10 preseason rankings.
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Maybe. But if you were a preseason poll voter, wouldn't you like to be right once in your term?
 
SLU is a smoldering ruin.

Yuri has indirectly become a VCU hero ... it was Rodney Ashby's quote - "Collins gets $110,000 in NIL; we've got to match that" - that got the play-for-pay cash rolling in Ramland. Without HAVOC Unlimited Collective, and Rodney .... and Collins as a shining example, I'm thinking half the players on current roster would not be there.
 
I'm thinking half the players on current roster would not be there.
You might want to check SLU's offseason happenings. They are a disaster. Collins was brought back with $ because he was in the transfer portal. Their team has been decimated and Ford is having a bad offseason. He had two recent defections that added to their problems.
 


Most of the A10 is having a rough offseason.

I know its not that easy.... but it's hard to not look at that when deciding who gets added to a conference & who doesn't.

Lets take Loyola-CHI for example... last 4 seasons there's been an NCAA Tourney (prior to 2023, their first year in the A10) they made it 3 times. 2 of those 3 they made at least the Sweet 16, 1 of those was a trip to the Final 4.

Our final 4 run.... which we followed up with another CAA Champ. & made the NCAA Tourney & came very close to making the Sweet 16 for the 2nd year in a row..... not to mention the extreme increase in donations & season ticket requests.... made us look extremely attractive to the A10.... I can all but guarantee that played a HUGE factor in us getting here.

I'd be willing to bet Loyola-Chicago's recent success from 2018-22 gave them increases in ticket sales, donations etc.... and I'm sure their recent history of success played a vital part in the A10 looking to add them. As well as having another major city like Chicago as part of the A10.
Agree, Loyola was trending the right way in a coveted tv market. 2022 was a tough year for them to join A10 as they had little team depth. It doesn’t appear they will be conf top 5 next year but I’d be surprised if they don’t make a big step up from last year. We need so much improvement from the bottom half of the A10. Unrelated, I’d like conf to develop a metric that if not met we remove schools and add others. We’re trending down badly over recent years.
 
Agree, Loyola was trending the right way in a coveted tv market. 2022 was a tough year for them to join A10 as they had little team depth. It doesn’t appear they will be conf top 5 next year but I’d be surprised if they don’t make a big step up from last year. We need so much improvement from the bottom half of the A10. Unrelated, I’d like conf to develop a metric that if not met we remove schools and add others. We’re trending down badly over recent years.
Yeah, without a doubt they took a hit this past season roster wise while joining the A10... not everyone can transition smoothly to a bigger/tougher conference like we did coming from the CAA to the A10.
 
Yuri has indirectly become a VCU hero ... it was Rodney Ashby's quote - "Collins gets $110,000 in NIL; we've got to match that" - that got the play-for-pay cash rolling in Ramland. Without HAVOC Unlimited Collective, and Rodney .... and Collins as a shining example, I'm thinking half the players on current roster would not be there.
I know Yuri is a great PG and a great player, but all I can think about when I see him is how many times we smoked SLU and shut him down. Ace really took that matchup personally :D
 
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