History not on Hoos' side as new year approaches
Virginia has been in this spot previously under Tony Bennett. It’s just been quite a while.
UVa is scheduled to return from its holiday break on Saturday night at Syracuse, the first road game on the Wahoos’ ACC schedule. It’s the first of three away from John Paul Jones Arena to begin the new year.
UVa will take a 7-5 overall record into 2022. Those five losses match Bennett’s second team at UVa (2010-11) for the most in his 13-year coaching career as December turns to January. He’s only had two other teams with four losses at the arrival of the new year: his first team at UVa (2009-10) and his final group at Washington State (2008-09).
This year’s team is trending in the wrong direction as the end of the calendar year approaches. The Hoos started 1-2 for the first time in nine years. They headed into December with three losses for the first time since Bennett’s first two seasons in Charlottesville. They’ve dropped two of their last three and three of their last five. Three Bennett-coached UVa teams—in 2014-15 (4) and 2017-18 (3), and the 2018-19 national championship team (3)—didn’t lose five games all season.
Last week’s 67-50 loss to Clemson dropped UVa to No. 113 in the NCAA’s NET ranking, the program’s low point since the metric was introduced three years ago. That ranking has since dipped an additional spot to No. 114.
It’s been a challenging season for the Cavaliers’ head coach.
“I mean, you just, you keep battling. Who knows?” Bennett said when asked following the Clemson loss if he thought this team could turn its season around. “I mean, I'd be lying if I said, ‘Oh, absolutely,’ but you just keep working. We've played good stretches of basketball and we've played some poor stretches of basketball, and that's playing itself out.”
With 75 percent of the scoring from last year’s team departing, figuring out how these new-look Hoos would work together offensively was the biggest question looming as the season tipped off. After 12 games, that question—or more accurately, now full-blown concern—remains largely unanswered.
UVa’s 61.8 points-per-game average ranks 324th in the country. The Hoos are 106th nationally in KenPom’s offensive efficiency rankings; their 104.1 rating, if it holds for the full season, would be second-worst of the Bennett era.
East Carolina transfer Jayden Gardner is 14th in the ACC in scoring (14.8 ppg) and fifth in shooting percentage (57.9 percent). He has scored in double digits in nine of the Hoos’ 12 games—but put up just nine points on 2-of-9 shooting in the loss to Clemson.
Fellow transfer Armaan Franklin (11.5 ppg) is the other UVa player averaging double figures. But after shooting 42.4 percent from beyond the 3-point line last season at Indiana, Franklin has made just 20.3 percent of his shots from beyond the arc for the Hoos—including an 0-for-21 spell that spanned four full games from late November until mid-December.
As a team, Virginia is making just 31.7 percent of its shots from long range. Kihei Clark (40.9 percent) is the lone starter making more than 40 percent of his 3-pointers. First-year reserves Taine Murray and Igor Milicic Jr. are a combined 15-for-36 (41.7 percent) but have combined to average just 8.2 minutes per game as they work to earn Bennett’s trust at the defensive end.
Against Clemson, the Hoos went 11 minutes in the second half without a field goal, missing 11 straight shots from the floor as a two-point deficit expanded to 14. That’s been a too-common issue for a team that has struggled to stay in sync offensively:
* UVa went 8 1/2 minutes between buckets down the stretch in the season-opening loss at home to Navy, missing eight straight. The game was tied when that drought began; the Hoos wound up losing by eight.
* The Hoos also missed eight straight shots in their loss at Houston, a stretch that began with about four minutes left in the first half and ended more four minutes into the second half. UVa lost that game by 20.
* The Wahoos had an early 10-2 lead at James Madison before going almost 13 minutes between field goals to finish the first half. The Dukes went on a 22-0 run as UVa was missing 10 straight shots; JMU wound up winning the game by three.
Guard Reece Beekman paused for a moment when asked about those extended shooting droughts following the Clemson loss.
“We're still running the offense to the best we can,” Beekman ultimately replied. “If it’s a good shot, we’re always gonna shoot those. If it doesn’t fall, doesn’t fall. So I feel like we just got to stay in the offense and get the best shot we can.”
Beekman had a career night against the Tigers, finishing with 20 points on 7-of-10 shooting, including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc. It was the first time in his two UVa seasons that he made multiple 3-pointers in a game. He showed an assertive side that the Wahoos could use more of moving forward.
“I feel like my teammates and my coaches are always telling me, ‘Stay aggressive, stay aggressive,’ knowing that we need that,” Beekman admitted afterward. “That's always the mindset coming in, but tonight just kind of, you know, took what the defense gave me.”
According to KenPom’s offensive rating formula, Beekman had been the Hoos’ least efficient starter offensively over the season’s first 10 games. Even with back-to-back improved performances against Fairleigh-Dickinson and the Tigers, he’s shooting just 37.8 percent from the floor on the season, just 25.0 percent from behind the 3-point line. The sophomore is tied for third in the ACC with 52 assists, and leads the league in assist-to-turnover ratio.
If Beekman can continue to emerge at the offensive end, it could be a much-needed boost to the struggling Wahoos. Same with 6-foot-11 forward Kadin Shedrick, who hasn’t broken double digits since the Coppin State game in mid-November. Perhaps Franklin can rediscover his more consistent shooting stroke from last year at Indiana, or one (or more) of Murray, Milicic or Carson McCorkle can develop enough defensively to get more opportunities to contribute on the other end.
Whatever jump-start the Hoos can find probably needs to kick in soon. The Clemson loss dropped UVa to 1-1 in the ACC. Now they’re looking at playing five of their next seven away from JPJ, starting with three road games—at Syracuse, a rematch with the Tigers then at North Carolina—in an eight-day span. The Wahoos dropped both of their true road games in non-conference play, at Houston and JMU.
That 2010-11 UVa team that was 8-5 as December ended finish the season 16-15; the prior season, Bennett’s first at Virginia, the Hoos went 15-16. They’re the last two UVa teams (excluding the 2019-20 season, which ended abruptly amid the initial spread fo the COVID-19 virus) to fail to play postseason basketball. Bennett’s final Washington State team ended the year 17-16 after going one-and-done in the NIT.
As of Wednesday morning, KenPom was projecting Virginia to win just six more games, including just one ACC road game (at Pitt on January 19th). Those projections say the Wahoos won’t win again until their game at JPJ against Wake Forest on January 15th, which would be the longest at UVA since a nine-game skid during Bennett’s first year in Charlottesville.
History is not on Virginia’s side. Neither are the projections. But there are still 18 games for Bennett’s team, which was picked to finish fourth in the ACC prior to the season, to put the pieces together.
“But can we get this turned around? Absolutely,” Bennett said last week. “You pursue that, and no matter what you just keep getting better. I can't say, ‘We got this,’ and I can't say, ‘No way.’ That's just, any coach, I can sit up here and talk all I want, but that's reality. So we take a few days off, we refresh, we enjoy the holiday with our family and friends and then get back to work and see where we're at, and keep pursuing.”
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