It’s been a rough ride of late for Tony Bennett and the Wahoos as they’ve been hit with a reality check in recent weeks. Some lopsided losses have dropped UVa to 11-4 and 2-2 in ACC play and have everyone looking for answers, or at least wondering if this team is simply destined to be average (or worse).
In these losses, it has become clear that while UVa has a blueprint that it follows year in and year out the Cavaliers might not have what they need to make it happen this year against better competition.
On Saturday, the warts continued to show in a 76-60 loss at NC State. Unlike recent road losses, the Cavaliers didn’t get blitzed from the tip and instead held their own for most of the first half, leading by as many as six points. But in the end it didn’t matter much, as by halftime State had a 35-28 lead on their way to a comfortable win.
The loss is UVa’s third in five games, all by double digits. The four losses have come by an average of 21 points, and while they all came away from home and three came against solid competition, the lack of competitiveness underscores how far the Hoos have fallen from their preseason expectations.
Even in the 2022 season that ended with an NIT bid, UVa lost just two games by 20 or more: On the road at Houston, which finished No. 2 in KenPom and made it to the Elite 8, and also to national runner-up UNC in the ACC Tournament. The Wahoos had some rough moments last year but never lost by 20 or more. UVa hasn’t lost three games by 20+ points since 2011, Bennett’s second year, when the team finished 16-15.
Going through previous UVa seasons under Bennett, it’s remarkable how many of the losses were close, often by a possession, and often low scoring. And when looking at this season’s losses, one thing is clear: While KenPom says UVa has the 19th best defense in the country, the results of late say otherwise.
In the losses, the Cavaliers allowed opponents to score 65, 77, and 76 twice, while they themselves haven’t broken 60 (more on that later.) On Saturday, NCSU got what it wanted when they wanted it. They averaged 1.21 points per possession and made 62.1 percent of their two-point attempts, beating their season average from 3 at just 35.7 percent, not exactly an outlier performance. UVa’s other three losses featured better outside shooting from its opponents, but there were other issues too, like rebounding margins and so on. Virginia is allowing opponents to make just 29.9 percent of their 3-pointers this season, but that number is bound to go up as the Hoos play better teams. To date, they’ve played nine teams outside of the top-100 in KenPom, with six of them outside the top-200. Yet 11 of their 16 games remaining are against top-100 competition, six against the top-50.
My point is this: if you look at the statistics, it looks like UVa has a vintage Bennett defense that has had a few bad games, but it’s more likely that the numbers are inflated by bad competition and lots of steals and blocks, which haven’t been repeatable against better teams.
Lapses and errors have been a big issue and in his last few press conferences Bennett has stressed the need to get those issues corrected. If this group continues to have breakdowns, perhaps some personnel shuffling is in order. But just as big a problem is the lack of ability to win one-on-one matchups.
UVa plays a man defense but gets beat straight up by the man across far too often. The pack-line also requires a lot of help and rotations, but this team is not as athletic as some others that Bennett has had and they don’t get to their spots as quickly. And in situations where they do, the opposing player simply makes an athletic play. This problem might be hard to correct this year but it’s been glaring, particularly against Memphis and NC State, which have solid athleticism, big men that can overpower opponents, and guards that can get in the lane and score.
Offensively, UVa has had its fair share of struggles. The Hoos shot the ball poorly in their two Fort Myers games in November but the hope was that those were outliers and maybe a weird gym that caused some problems. But they also struggled to score against a very beatable Northeastern team and barely pulled that one out at home. Against Memphis, Notre Dame, and NC State, the defense got beat a lot but they also couldn’t provide much of a counter punch on the other end.
UVa truly does seem like a “live by the 3, die by the 3” team this year, which is concerning because this isn’t exactly a team designed to win that way.
In 2021, UVa added Sam Hauser and Trey Murphy to the roster and was reliant on making 3s to win. But those two along with Jay Huff, who made 38.7 percent of his 3-pointers, Tomas Woldetensae, who made 41.8 percent of his, and even Kihei Clark, who knocked down 35.8 percent, made UVa an elite shooting team. Yes, when the shots didn’t fall, they ran into trouble and lost some games, a few of which by big margins. But that was a group of elite shooters, including multiple pros in Murphy and Hauser that are shooting better than 41 percent from deep in the NBA this year.
This group isn’t like that team, and frankly it was evident before the season started that even if they shoot a bit better than last year (their 3-point average has gone from 35.0 percent to 35.9 this year) improvements would be marginal.
UVa has only one shooter comparable to the guys on that 2021 team, Isaac McKneely. He’s the only guy on this roster that will likely make a living based on his ability to knock down 3s. He’s making nearly half of them this year but has been quiet in UVa’s losses, except for a hot second half on Saturday after the game was all but decided. He is averaging 5.5 3-point attempts per game, but took just three against Notre Dame and one against Wisconsin, which probably speaks to how opponents are trying to take him out of the game. Still, UVa has to find a way to get the ball in his hands more.
Other than McKneely, there are a few players that can make 3s but calling them quality outside shooters is probably a stretch. Jake Groves is shooting 40.5 percent but a lot of his best shooting came early in the season. In the last three games, he’s 1-for-7 and he isn’t a volume shooter, averaging just 2.8 3-point tries per game. Andrew Rohde was brought in to provide some offense and hasn’t quite lived up to his potential yet, but there’s time for him to make that happen. Still, he wasn’t a dead-eye shooter last year, hitting 32 percent of his 3s and this year he’s dropped down to 28.6 percent.
Reece Beekman and Ryan Dunn can hit a 3 here and there but they’re not good outside shooters and odds are that’s not going to suddenly change. Beekman is making 27.5 percent of his 3s and shooting them just isn’t a big part of his game; he’s attempted two 3s per game through his UVa career. He did shoot 35.1 percent last year, so if he could get closer to that average that would help. And any shooting improvement from Dunn just hasn’t happened yet. He’s averaging 10.1 points per game, which isn’t bad, but a lot of those points are layups and dunks created by turnovers or good passes. He’s also struggled to finish at times, and is shooting just 21.7 percent from deep and 58 percent from the free-throw line.
And for a team that goes as its shooting goes, UVa doesn’t take many 3s. Virginia is 79th in 3-point average at 35.9 percent but just 272nd in 3-point attempts per possession. If anything, perhaps the Wahoos should lean into outside shooting and just hope for the best if they aren’t going to find other ways to score.
Some of the issues that have plagued UVa this season started before that, with a few roster decisions that impacted the 2023-24 roster.
UVa added Ben Vander Plas to last year’s team, which on the surface made plenty of sense. But in playing him at the 5, which happened more as the season progressed, it relegated UVa’s two primary big men to the bench, and eventually, to the transfer portal. (Isaac Traudt also redshirted, which at least in part has to be because of BVP’s addition to the roster). We’re not going to re-litigate Kadin Shedrick’s decision to leave or blame anyone for “running him off” or anything like that. But the fact remains that he saw his playing time drop to virtually none last year, and if you take his quotes after transferring at face value, he felt that he had to go elsewhere to develop and play to his strengths. We’re not playing the blame game but the fact remains, Shedrick is at Texas now, and UVa is worse off for it.
The departures of Traudt, Shedrick, Francisco Caffaro, and the exhausted eligibility of Jayden Gardner and Vander Plas, three of which should have been expected, created a massive hole in UVa’s roster. They already had Blake Buchanan signed, but UVa had redshirted every freshman big man since Jarred Reuter so expecting Buchanan, a solid but not transcendent recruit, to break the mold there would have been naive. The same goes for Anthony Robinson, a late addition to the roster who, as expected, is redshirting.
UVa went to the portal and added Jordan Minor and Jake to the roster to fill the open spots. Both additions made sense and UVa had needs but neither of them are rim protectors, so that issue loomed heading into the season. While Groves has been solid, he isn’t a traditional big man and doesn’t replace most of what was lost last offseason; he’s really a replacement for Vander Plas, with slightly different strengths and weaknesses. And Minor has been a major disappointment, there’s no way around that. This was just a miss, plain and simple, and it’s been costly. Still, even if he played as expected leading up to the season, there was reason for concern with depth in the frontcourt, and whether UVa had the forwards that it needed to be good on both ends in Bennett’s structure.
Some of these issues probably cannot be easily fixed this season. Perhaps the guards will suddenly be red hot from 3 the rest of the season, but that seems unlikely. And if shooting isn’t there, what’s the recipe for this team? They have one player who can get downhill and create his shot in the lane (Beekman), and because of the way they’re being defended, end up taking inefficient mid-range jumpers and contested twos around the rim. And defensively, UVa’s athleticism disadvantage can’t really be fixed, unless the Hoos start playing their less experienced but more athletic players on the bench more (Elijah Gertrude, Buchanan, and Leon Bond).
Bennett has a reputation for being one of the best coaches in the sport, and for good reason. And maybe, with a week between games, we’ll see him make some adjustments and get more out of the team and put these bad performances in the rear view.
But a chef is only as good as the ingredients he has to work with and right now, I don’t see a lot of easy fixes to what ails them.
And that’s not to say UVa doesn’t have good players, and it's okay to be high on them as individuals. But this does feel like an incomplete team, like there’s a piece or two missing. As a result, they’re one dimensional on offense, but with a group of players who aren’t necessarily the best at doing that one thing, and a step slow on defense, because they’re outmanned against ACC-level competition from an athleticism standpoint on the wings, and from a size standpoint in the post.
The Cavaliers are learning some hard lessons this year. When things have gone wrong, they’ve really gone wrong, which underscores how narrow UVa’s path to victory is compared to other Cavalier teams of the past.
Perhaps next year they’ll be better designed to get back to vintage Bennett basketball. But in the offseason, Bennett and Co. will likely need to look hard at what they have from an athleticism and skill (shooting) standpoint and be aggressive in adding those components, because right now it doesn’t feel that they have enough of either.
