Author: Cuts from The Corner

Happy New Year my lovely UVa hoops enthusiasts!  This was about as interesting of a game as I could have expected in a 24-point blowout at home against a bad team. Level of competition is always important to consider and, despite Louisville being a historically great team and an ACC conference opponent, they’re currently Kenpom’s 205th…

Well, there is nothing to sugar coat from that contest. I sat after the game in stunned silence for a while attempting to process what I’d just watched prior to a (shudder) re-watch. Sometimes you’ll see CTB coached teams get blown out by high quality opponents. Sometimes you’ll see them lose to opponents they shouldn’t. Rarely to almost never…

It’s funny how so often after games like this I think to myself, “Okay… but what’s worth talking about?” And then I continually find myself struggling with what to cut after I’ve clipped. This is the kind of game where we get more implications than we do conclusions, but there are still things that do translate, and…

This game was notable because it was a continuation of similar issues we faced against Northeastern; we just ran into an opponent who punished us worse. There were woes across the board and this is going to be a Cuts focusing mostly on problematic areas as a result. Memphis pressured us, sped us up, played good both…

Well. That was a game that happened. One of the goals of this blog is to highlight the “whys” through video, after each game and to tackle things that both caused the immediate result and that might have a longer-term impact on what to expect moving forward. It’s a hard thing to do when most of the reasoning…

This was a fun game and there are fun things to write about afterward! It really wasn’t as close as the 30 point differential – at one point if you doubled the scores, it would have been 100-36 until we started emptying the bench. After I watch the game live, I typically try to think…

The Heater Game? Maybe not because, hopefully, we’ll have more games where we’ll shoot that well, but it was fantastic to see so many guys get into a rhythm from outside. This was a convincing win that carried a 33-point margin in the second half before we relied heavily on our bench for roughly the…

Hello, friends, there’s so much to talk about! I’m having an especially hard time editing myself… and I always have a hard time editing myself! This was a great and very encouraging win against a team whose offensive was 4th in the country coming into the game and who represented the best offensive rebounding team…

Man, I’m glad they got the heck out of Fort Myers with a 1-1 record! This was not their best basketball hampered by health, poor shooting, and some growing pains for the roster. It’s the kind of series you hope to escape with the best result possible, no matter how ugly, and regroup. Fortunately, we…

Woof. What do you take away from a game like that? Firstly, I’ll say that I don’t think Wisconsin that much of a better team (if at all) than Florida. They asked tough questions, played very soundly, and we played terribly and seemed a little shell-shocked. There really weren’t any answers coming off of that…

I’m going to get a little defensive today…. I am not a website designer, all! I’m simply a guy who loves UVa and hoops and who wants to share that in detail with anyone who wants to come along for the ride. Frankly, it took significant outside technological intervention just to get my video formatting…

Well, hello. Let’s all have a collective moment of silence for Isaac McKneely’s ankle and hope it finds a speedy recovery. Really, that’s the most important thing from games like this – health. Breath officially held. While it’s good that he didn’t brake it, sometimes brakes are easier to recover from than sprains, so it…

Apologies for the delay on this one, as I realize most are already looking forward to Tuesday, but I was there for a great win for setting the table for the rest of the season, so I hope the wait will have been worth it. In general, I thought that we played tough, with a…

I’m. So. Excited! Year two of Cuts from The Corner kicks off and, once again lovely readers, we have fresh cuts for the viewing from our UVa men’s basketball team! At the beginning of a season, I like to ease in with some general likes and dislikes – typically a little more scattershot because so…

Another Blue/White internal scrimmage in the books. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it out this year, but I have combed the highlights, digested the first-person accounts, checked the PBP, and have a few quick thoughts. It’s such a small sample-size that we are prone to over-analyzing because of the dearth of tangible assessment over…

Potential is one of those loaded words. For players, it’s their ultimate ceiling if everything comes together: their knowledge of the game, their skill, their strength and conditioning to become the best (or as close as they can) version of themselves. It’s hard to objectively calculate because it’s impossible to fully know, and when people…

We now reach the last and, judging by my communications with many of you, likely the most anticipated of my four pieces reviewing our four transfers incoming to the program this season; Andrew Rohde. If you’d like to review the others, Dante Harris, Jordan Minor, and Jacob Groves, can be found following their respective links.…

We move now into Part 3 of my offseason spotlight on incoming transfers, Jacob Groves from Oklahoma. Previously, I’ve done Dante Harris and Jordan Minor and will now focus on what we might expect to see from the 6’9″ stretch PF. As part of a member of the Big 12, Groves played against some of…

Ahead we move to Part 2 of my offseason incoming transfer spotlight. Last time we focused on Dante Harris and what he brings to the table as the potential primary ball-handler for us this season. In this piece, we’ll tackle Jordan Minor. How does the Northeastern Conference Co-Player of the Year and Defensive Player of…

Alright! Back to my favorite part of all of this which is combing through tape. Unlike last season where there was just one transfer coming in (Ben Vander Plas), we have four coming in this year so I’m going to have a lot of writing ahead of me! I’ll do one of these for each…

Welcome to Part 3 and the final installment of this offseason series reviewing opportunities for improvement. Part 1 about our redshirting strategy and Part 2 about our use of the transfer portal can be found in those respective links. Today I’m going to focus on a fairly loaded topic: playing time. The topic is loaded…

This is Part 2 in my post-season series of opportunities for improvement moving forward. If you’d like to read Part 1, which was about our redshirting process (and some of that content will be referenced in this article), it can be found here. It’s a tough topic to discuss comprehensively because, as of this moment,…

Phew! What a whirlwind of an offseason so far. Hopefully you’ve now read my self-assessment/lessons learned from 2022-2023 here. Building off of that, and what we’ve seen across the college basketball landscape both last year and seasons prior, we’re going to have some more “Commentary From The Corner” where I just discuss the areas in…

We’re almost exactly a year away from the birth of this site (officially), March 23rd, 2022, where I did a deep dive on the Virginia bench players “The Three Ms” to make sense of their respective playing time. One full year, an entire offseason, and reviews of almost every game in the 2022-2023 season, we’ve…

This game felt bad as a fan. Scoring 49 points felt bad as a fan. Well I’m here to, hopefully, give a little perspective on what went wrong, how Duke is a uniquely bad matchup for us, how we might combat similar personnel in other teams, and to digest what is and isn’t something we’ll…

It’s interesting writing a review of a game after we have updated information from a different game, but it does also help to provide some context to the most recent outcome. Fans were, rightly, thrilled after this game only to see that enthusiasm take a hit after watching us play against Duke the following night.…

Gentle readers, this was my favorite victory since the National Championship! It wasn’t the most dramatic (@Duke in 2022 or Vs. Syracuse in the ACC Tournament in 2021), and it wasn’t the most eye-opening (vs. Baylor and Illinois in Vegas this season), but it was the most cathartic for me. The whole breaking the streak…

Well. This game against the Cardinals looked much better than the last, primarily as a result of increased Dunn (and Caffaro??) minutes, along with the shift back to the Sides offense. Many of the same trends over the last few games were on display, including the perplexing decision to keep Kadin Shedrick on the bench,…

Well, I was on the road and unable to devote the time needed to clip the game, but I did watch it in full to accompany my preliminary watch. So, this review is going to be in a different format with no clips. Is this really a “Cut” from The Corner, then? To be debated.…

A struggle on the road following a grim performance on the road. I will, fortunately or unfortunately, have to write a shorter Cut for this game as I’ll be travelling unexpectedly later today through the rest of the week (won’t have a Clemson recording but we’ll see what clips are out there after that and…

Welp. This was the game we’ve been building toward over the past two – but really is a continuation of the issues we’ve been having since the Virginia Tech game with that brief pause against N.C. State. The month of February has not been kind to us and I’ve spoken at length about what I…

Well. I wrote after the Louisville game that the good thing about “concerning” wins is that you get to learn from them and make adjustments without it hurting your resume/standings. It is concerning, though, when you make a lot of the same mistakes in the following game and have a similar performance against a similar…

For better or for worse, my recording of the game got turned off last night and I haven’t found a full game capture anywhere. So, this review will be much lighter on clips than normal. Probably for the best! This was an ugly win; one that had no upside on the national stage but could…

Well. That was a pretty wild game! Nice to have the big officiating break at the end of a Duke game work out in our favor for once! I’ve been saying but I’ll reiterate here at length, I don’t really have much interest in rehashing that play in much detail. It’s especially laughable that they…

Every time I think I’m done writing about our frontcourt, they reel me back in! Hi, everyone. Took a needed (and timely, considering the game) vacation during the VT game, but am back to cover one of our better (and most encouraging) wins of the season. In the wake of looking lost on defense, implementing…

I wrote somewhat facetiously on social media that it was hard to find anything to write about this game, in reference to much of the offense coming against the zone, and the first two responses that I got were spot on as two of the larger things I’d earmarked to discuss. That was a cool…

After the last game I anticipated taking a break from writing about the frontcourt but, sure enough, it’s the most notable point of discussion after Jayden Gardner flipped the script from the Wake game and went off for 18 points and 6 rebounds in this one, shooting 8-12 from the field and firing up the…

This was another great win on the road, the first suffered by Wake at home this season. We shot the lights out from deep, including a career game from Armaan Franklin with 25 points and 10 rebounds in 37 minutes, and weathered the storm with both Reece Beekman and Kihei Clark playing through foul trouble…

Well, hello again! No specific game review this time, but given that we’re, roughly, halfway through the season if we get to play a few postseason games, it feels like a good time to check-in with some takeaways that I’ve been mulling while watching, digesting, replaying, pausing, replaying, pausing, replaying, clipping, and writing about the…

Another great and comfortable win, this time over an in-state rival. It was very cool to see Ty Jerome stop in for the game, and even cooler to see Steph Curry attend with him. Just good vibes all around in this one. After the last game against FSU, I focused on Small and Smaller Ball…

A shockingly comfortable win on the road against FSU is not something we, or any ACC team, has gotten used to in recent years. It was a good feeling that what likely would have been a “trap” game for us in any season, or just one in which we didn’t matchup as well given their…

Me: “Small Ball is being over-utilized and we need to scale back except in the right matchups.” CTB: “Note taken. Let’s try even SMALLER!” Me: “No! Wait! I didn’t mean… huh, would you look at that?” I celebrate any win over UNC feverishly, especially record setting 8th wins in a row at Charlottesville. And with…

A much-needed conference win against a solid opponent, historically giving CTB the most wins in program history! What a legend and how humble he was in accepting the accomplishment was a great example to the team and something for the supporters of the program to be proud. I’ll be going back to the likes and…

For anyone wondering – I have been back to the old format for the past two but that’s just because I haven’t been able to start recording real time and the resource from last year has been prompt and on it. Will return to old formatting as able/needed. Rather than my typical format of ad…

My initial gut reaction after watching this one was frustration and to recoil, but there’s a lot to be learned from this one that I hope we do moving forward. This was also the manifestation of some of the things I’ve expressed worry about earlier in the season. A really ugly first 25 minutes or…

The first one of these I’m having to do after a loss. I wouldn’t call this a discouraging loss, though. Several times in recent years we have faced a top-tier opponent like the Cougars and looked uncompetitive. That was not the case on Saturday. We very much looked like we belonged despite Reece not being…

We did it! The quality isn’t ideal yet because of my capture method (trying to see if we can fix that starting next game). I got a TON of help from Seattle Hoo (@seattlehoo), a new friend of the site, to help make this process work (and put a solution in place that should work…