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My theory is that some coaches don't have the patience to develop players who can be very good players in their Jr and Sr years.
I'm just happy we have kept Trimble who should help us quite a bit after he returns from injury.
College Basketball 2025-26 season thread
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I'm just happy we have kept Trimble who should help us quite a bit after he returns from injury.
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Nickel is definitely having a good season so far, averaging 15 ppg while shooting 47% from 3 on a currently undefeated Vandy team.
Cadeau’s numbers across the board aren’t substantially different than last season. But his 3-point shooting has been very good thus far at 41.5%. He is struggling from the line, however, shooting just 59%.
Cade Tyson is putting up some really good numbers on a pretty bad Minnesota team. Despite his high scoring, however, his 3-point % isn’t all that great at 34%.
Most of Ian Jackson’s stats are on par with last season’s averages, but his 3-point shooting inconsistently worse (31.7% vs. 39.5) and his free throw shooting is considerably better (86% vs. 72%).
Jalen Washington, who has joined Nickel at Vandy, has improved his numbers pretty much across the board (but not his 3-point shooting).
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Nickel is now a very experienced P5 b-ball player. Pretty typical career arc and would be reasonable to expect similar performance if he had stayed at UNC or Va Tech.
Cadeau is basically putting up the same numbers as at UNC, with a slight bump for 3FG% that is typical of sophomore to junior growth.
IJ is basically the same player at SJU.
The only inexplicable one is Cade Tyson, which is one of the greatest Bermuda Triangle mysteries of all time.
superrific
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My theory is that Nickel would have stuck around in the pre-NIL, pre-free-transfer era.
The problem isn't only patience. It's $$. If Nickel can get money playing elsewhere, and UNC doesn't have that money because it's being spent on players who can help now, well, Nickel will leave.
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He would be a nice fit for our SF/SG spot this year...
superrific
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Neither Puff nor Dunn ever did much at PSU. Styles is not awesome.
Also, sometimes players need a change of scenery. Harrison Ingram was meh at Stanford, and really good for us. Henri is putting up much bigger numbers here than at UA, I think.
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I don't think $$$ was the issue for Nickel not coming back to UNC. According to his girlfriend it was the coaching staff telling him not to expect more than a few minutes playing time again should he decide to return. I think the coaching staff was sending him a message that they wanted him to leave so they could replace him with a transfer.
superrific
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Or they were being honest, because he wasn't going to play a lot.
Plus it comes down to money in the end. Maybe not the first year. But Nickel is definitely getting paid this year, because he got to play last year. In the old days, playing time didn't necessarily mean money unless the player was good enough to play pro ball somewhere. Staying at UNC or Duke or the big schools would open a lot more doors in Europe to play ball. Guys who were bit contributors in the ACC had decent careers in Europe.
But now, they are already professionals. PT = money.
CarolinaFever
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Hopefully the staff will do better at retaining and getting talent for UNC.
4thgenheel
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this. nickel sucked his freshman year, that's why he barely played. he wasn't great his sophomore year at virginia tech, either.
this era is tough for recruiting the kids who take a while to develop, they so often go elsewhere for a re-set or more money or whatever.
we've benefitted from it in the other direction with all of the good transfers we've gotten. it just is what it is in this era.
a LOT of folks predicted that exactly this would happen with nickel - stud as an upperclassman but not good enough for us to give enough PT to keep around earlier in his career.
4thgenheel
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for every cadeau and nickel and ian jackson, there are cormac ryans and maneks and ingrams and veesars. stevensons.
as the CBB world turns.
as the CBB world turns.
Yeah honestly as a program I think we have benefitted from the new transfer portal rules far more than we’ve been hurt by it all things considered.
For this season specifically I can’t help but feel like we lost one too many players. Cadeau, J Wash and Lubin all had their flaws and you can make a case against retaining each one, but we could really use an extra playmaker and/or another serviceable big man in the rotation.
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Totally forgot about Lubin.
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I don't think that Cadeau's skill set matches the offense that HD wants to run and - as it was clear that HD wasn't going to adapt his offense to Cadeau's skills - it was probably in each party's best interest that Cadeau move on in the portal. It stinks, as he's a talented player, but there was no use spending another use trying to put a square peg in a round hole when we had 2 years of evidence that it wasn't really working out.
I don't think that HD intended both Washington and Lubin moving on. In fact, it seems like HD had gone out into the portal to get a dependable starter in Veesaar, but fully intended Lubin to stay (and Washington to move on). But then Lubin decided at the last minute to enter the portal and the rest is history. I do wish we could have gotten another backup 5 - even just a "bruiser" capable of rebounding and playing solid defense for 5 minutes a half - but, sadly, that didn't happen.
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I have little doubt that the coaching staff was not going to give him playing time his Soph year. He made the right decision to transfer so he could develop and realize his potential.
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Hard to say he sucked his freshman yr at UNC when he played so few minutes/game. His stats were pretty good the few games when he got double digit playing time. His Soph year at VT was pretty good at VT averaging 9pts and hitting 40% from the 3 pt line
But he has come into in his own last year and this year at Vandy when he has averaged 25 minutes/game
Yeah that’s pretty much my take on Cadeau as well. It just wasn’t going to work out for him at UNC for whatever reason and it was for the best for both sides that he move on, but I still really liked his game and hate that he didn’t pan out.
Unfortunate situation with Lubin leaving unexpectedly. Hard to blame the staff for that, but I hope they figure out a way to just embrace small ball when Veesaar is on the bench. I firmly believe that High and Brown should never play outside of garbage time in blowouts.
CarolinaFever
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Agree about a backup for Veesaar and on Hugh and Brown. When Trimble gets back I think we'll see Stevensen come off the bench for a 3 man rotation of Veesaar, Wilson and Stevensen.
4thgenheel
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it's not hard to say at all. he shot 38% from the field and 22% from 3. that sucks. he probably would've been better with more time (he did have a couple of decent games early in the season, notably the citadel) but he didn't get it because he was a young, raw, developmental project of a player and those types don't get a ton of PT at a blueblood.
he was not remotely strong enough to hang at the 4 and wasn't quick enough to play the 3 and the shooting/offense needed to justify playing him through those issues wasn't there yet.
just not the kind of player that gets to develop in-game at a program like UNC. he's the kind we try to grab when he's older and playing like he is now.
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respectfully disagree