Gotta love December RPI numbers. ESPN's RPI rankings have us going from 45 to 17 with yesterday's win -- and with tOSU's win over KY and with various other results of course.
We're not even completely healthy yet (LP's recovery from the absence, MS banged up) nor had much time with the current players together (DT starting, DH playing quite a bit, JR seeing a few minutes). We won 9 of 10 to start the season despite that, including two top 15 wins.
It's really nice to have inside and outside scoring options as well as plentiful offensive "help". Deepest UVa team in terms of offense since ... ?
IW is starting to occupy that "do things that don't show up" role that Mitchell, Anderson, and Atkins performed at various points in their respective careers. Will be fun to watch him grow this season and step up even further next year as it seems most of our bigs do.
Although the players that have not seemed to get a lot better seem to be bought in to doing what they can do to help the team. I admire EN and MT for not hanging their heads and for contributing best they can. We all hoped they would do more/be better by this stage of their careers, but they have little spurts on given nights that absolutely are the difference between winning and losing a game here or there. To borrow an Australian phrase, good on them.
Sophomores are getting really good OTJ training for next season. A couple are playing big, important roles. AN will obviously be just fine, so it will be interesting to see what heady young players from next year's class will be able to do (if they can get on the court at all).
How big does DT's transfer now look in helping the continuity of the program? That sense that the program will just chug along regardless of who graduates is starting to feel more justified.