Demo

Some thoughts on Karvala after getting to see him up close for a couple of days. Makes a total of 6 games of his I’ve gotten to watch, 3 from HS last year, 1 travel ball game he played against Ethan Taylor last spring and the 2 EYBL scholastic games the last 2 days. This may go on for a while, but he is a really interesting prospect to me: 1) Physically, he is about as prototype a wing as it gets. He’s legitimately 6’7”, which I’d wondered about and while his frame is pretty narrow, he’s probably 185ish, I think he can probably get to 200-205 and that’ll play. He’s not long, but probably slightly plus, +2 or so maybe. Athletically, he’s top shelf. He can really run. He has easy movement and change of direction. And the vertical explosion is something. Probably pushing legit 40”. There was a play where they threw him an alley oop that only Wemby could have caught but Karvala’s fingertips were slightly above the top of the square and his head was at the rim. That was a woah moment. 2) We’ve run through his game before, and there wasn’t a lot I hadn’t seen. He’s a streaky shooter with some funk in his stroke that needs cleaning up that isn’t happening now. Makes his release a hair slow which with his twitch shouldn’t happen, The handle needs to tighten up notably. Right now at the HM level he’d be strictly a 3 bounce straight line driver. Not sure if that will get better or not. The defensive tools are great if he develops the mentality of a stopper. Not sure if he’s got that, but it’ll play. He’s miles better than a kid like Dorn. 3) The between the ears is gonna be the thing here. For a kid who has a legit NBA toolkit, Karvala’s confidence is a clean slate from game to game. If he makes a couple of early plays he revs up and he really pops. But if he doesn’t he becomes pretty content with just blending into the game. He’s not an alpha or instinctively a killer like Moody is. He needs a PG who understands the need to get him out of the box strong and his current PG is a shot hunting machine and doing him no good at all. And he’s just a bit of a different kid. During halftime warmups of a game they were losing yesterday he was singing along to Enter Sandman, which was playing overhead. Would think Cig would have ripped his head off. But he competed between the lines. He’s not uncompetitive, just…different. Summary: Karvala is crazy high variance, way more so than Moody or Branham. His range of outcome is anywhere from a 2 year guy who plays in The League to a 1 year and transfer out who doesn’t work out and damned near anything in between is reasonably possible. I’m down with taking the swing here because he’s gifted in a way that doesn’t grow on trees and he seems like a good kid, but anyone who watches him and confidently predicts an outcome is nuts. Fwiw

College coaching is such an insular world that it always kills me. Every coach in the country is no more than maybe 3 degrees of separation from every other coach in the country.

The injury issue concerns me with him. He’s not as athletic as Luck, he’s not built like a LB the way Luck was, but he seems to relish contact in the same way. Plus, he already has a concussion under his belt. They really need to work hard with him on picking his spots. Side note: the most underappreciated awesome thing from the NC game is the fact that the LB that Mendoza trucked on the 5yd line was the same guy who gave him the concussion hit at Cal. Love that, and you know he remembers it.

Would be really interested to know what he’d run at the combine. He’s quick out of breaks but he doesn’t seem to separate on shear speed. Wondering if he’s 4.6ish, something like that.

Moody’s gonna be in heavy rotation next year, no doubt. Probably more minutes then Sisley’s getting this year. Other than needing to add about 15 or 20lbs his game’s just ready to go.

Off to check out Karvala at the Quincy Showcase in beautiful(heavy, heavy sarcasm) Quincy, Il. Plays tonight agains Iowa United(Arafan Diane) and tomorrow night against Wasatch Academy(Junior County). Should match up a fair bit with County. That’ll be fun. Downside of these freaking winter showcase events: We’re supposed to have a bunch of snow, something in the 6-10” range, where I live starting Saturday morning and through the day. So I have to punt on the Saturday games, which is a really good 6 game slate. Not that hanging out in a hotel in Quincy for a couple of extra days wouldn’t be super sweet. Side note: Iowa United is coached by Indiana mega-legend Keith Smart. If I see him for a free moment will probably be forced to ask how it feels to now be sharing the pedestal for the greatest moment in IU sports history with Fernando Mendoza.

Hardest I’ve laughed in a minute.

Yeah.

No quibble with Kamara being DMVP, made 1 of the 2 plays of the game for Chrissake, but in real time this is absolutely how it felt. Ponds was, as always, a freaking monster.

Wish nothing but the best for the young man. He’s rep’d the school very well. I still feel like Cig would love to grow his own QB’s but since he’s clearly never conceding to the idea of a rebuilding year, and at his age why would he, it’s gonna take a pretty unusual kid to be good enough to play somewhere and yet willing to possibly spend an extended period of time not playing until they believe he’s the Guy from pretty much the 1st day he steps on the field. That’s a tough needle to thread.

Unlike position guys, strength coaches are basically just career strength coaches, right? If that’s the case I can totally see the move for that role pretty much always being whatever the best money is. If UT wants to reset the market with Owings, good for him.

Made a joke about that exact thing to a friend today. But that guy just screams the whole Rick Pitino I’m-gonna-coach-until-I-die thing.

That kid’s story is almost beyond belief. Just incredible. And gotta confess, would pay pretty good money to watch the 1st meeting between Mendoza and Mark Davis,

Those JMU kids who came from nowhere to this, God love them all. I’d adopt Ponds if I could. Love that kid.

Not sure what to say. Just extraordinary. And to think that 25 months ago a fair number of us, raising my hand, thought this was just a stone dead program and no one was gonna want the job. And the Mendoza touchdown is this generation’s Keith Smart shot. Will never, ever, be forgotten.

Does the A10 have a shot at 3 bids?

And it wouldn’t be an IU event if Prince didn’t jump in.

No No, no No, no, no Do not want this and will NEVER reciprocate it.

Funny how that works

Wow

The Bears vs the Stan Kroenke’s. There can’t be enough losers.

Flyin’ to the Hoop is a 1st rate event. One of my favorites. Didn’t go this year because I wanted to see Vaughn Karvala at the Quincy Shootout and couldn’t do both. But, man, if I’d known Manhertz was a thing when I was making plans I would have done Dayton.

Daughter 1 told me I needed to check these guys out. Wolf Alice is a British sort of all over the map but apparently mostly indie band with 4 albums and 4 EP’s. Had not heard of them. Was told specifically that I needed to listen in order due to their pretty pronounced evolution. So busted out My Love is Cool, their debut album from 2015, and it’s terrific. Sort of grungy, but not really. Great edge. Big thumbs up. Sent daughter 1 my opinion and my thanks and was informed I didn’t start far enough back. Apparently if you start with the early EP’s they were basically a folk act, which is pretty wild listening to this. Got to do that. Anyway, here ya go.

Not gonna bother to dig into it at all, but am willing to predict that as this gets around a fair piece of our fanbase will validate his point pretty quickly.

In St Louis was planning on absolutely watching it alone, and then this came out of nowhere: got a text from 1 of my oldest friends who lives in Hagerstown, IN, which is basically Richmond. He says he’s gonna drive over Monday and watch it with me. So he’s gonna drive like 10 hrs round trip to watch it on my TV instead of his TV. Seems a little nuts, but this is what IUFB has done to otherwise sane people.