If you caught Rick Pitino’s latest blog on Tuesday, you saw that the head coach dropped some pretty cool information about possibly adding some J.V. games to the schedule.
We are working on playing 10 J.V. games this year. Some will be played at the Yum! Center on game day. It will give guys like Matz, Dillon and Ryan a chance to play major minutes and continue to develop.
That would be pretty awesome for those guys. Even though they don’t get a lot of minutes in the real games, they still do get to practice everyday, so it is not like they are just sitting there and not improving. However, practicing in an empty gym and getting some minutes in front of a crowd are completely different. That is what these games would do for them. They would get real game minutes and action, so if their number is called in the “real” games, they are better prepared.
I am not sure of what all teams around the country have J.V. teams. The first one that came to mind for me was North Carolina. This is from an ESPN.com article back in 2012 about UNC:
Twelve to 14 others will make the junior varsity team, which plays a schedule of prep schools and community colleges preceding varsity games during the season. Students are allowed to play JV for two years, and among the perks are front row seats to varsity games – and, of course, the hope of earning their way onto the varsity someday.
Now, Louisville’s may be a little different. It may just be six or seven guys that are already on the team and that is it. I am not sure that Pitino would open this up to more students from campus, but that is just a guess by me.
Either way, there could be some pretty cool pre-game activities going on this season!
What schools have a JV Team??