Looking Ahead: Breaking down goals for UVa's returning players

The college basketball season is now less than a week away. That’s a great sentence for UVa fans to read, as the No. 18-ranked Wahoos prepare to tip off their 2022-23 campaign on Monday night against North Carolina Central at JPJ (9 p.m., RSN).

The Cavaliers are looking to improve on a 21-14 season where they missed the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2013.

Virginia has higher expectations this season in part because the program added some talented players to the roster, but also because it returns so much experience from last year’s team.

The 2021-22 Hoos were led in part by a couple players that were taking on much larger roles as well as two transfers who were adjusting to life in the pack-line. Now all of those players are a year older, and hopefully can show incremental improvement from a season ago.

As the season quickly approaches, today we’re going to set a reasonable goal for every returning scholarship player on the roster if the Hoos are going to go from an NIT team to an ACC contender and beyond.

Goal: Continue to make strides on the offensive end.

This season feels like it could be a breakout year for a few Cavaliers, Beekman chief among them. Last season, he became one of the team’s most critical players, starting in the backcourt and playing 35.1 minutes per game. What Beekman did on the defensive end was quite impressive, averaging 2.1 steals per game in a defensive system that doesn’t encourage players to gamble to pick off passes. He also showed improvement on offense: After scoring 4.7 points per game as a freshman, Beekman improved to an 8.2 points-per-game average last season, and had 13 double-digit scoring performances.

Assuming he continues to bring it on the defensive end, his offensive game will determine how much he will elevate his play as a junior. Beekman is already a great distributor at 5.2 assists per game, but if he can get his scoring to a double-digit average, Beekman will have a good shot at making an All-ACC team.

Goal: Lead the team with steadiness.

Beekman’s backcourt mate is about as known a commodity as you can have in college basketball. Clark is going into his fifth season as a Cavalier, in what has been one of the most bizarre careers a player can have, what with winning a national title and playing through the pandemic. Last season, Clark scored 10+ points per game for the second time in his career, made 34.6 percent of his 3s, and averaged 4.4 assists per game.

After four years in Charlottesville, what can Clark do better? The roster is deeper and more experienced this year than they have been in some time, with Clark the eldest statesman. His primary goal this season should be to lead the team both vocally and by example, as they try to get back to the NCAA Tournament. Clark will surely have a big role on this team, but the makeup of the team will be different. Given the amount of basketball he has played and the variety of teammates he has, he should be well equipped to deal with another season of change.

Goal: Get to the free throw line.

Having shown to be a great addition from the transfer portal last year, UVa will be expecting Gardner to be a consistent presence again this season. He was Virginia’s most-consistent scorer, averaging 15.3 points per contest. The former ECU forward has a unique game with an ability to score around the rim despite being undersized against true on-the-block big men, and a nice mid-range game to compliment that.

If there’s one area he could increase his scoring, it’s at the line. Gardner still shot plenty of free throws, attempting 121 and making just under 80 percent of them. But at ECU, he got to the stripe at a much higher clip, which shows that improvement is possible. Gardner’s free throw rate at UVa last season was 27.7, after a rate of 51.4 the previous season with 126 free throws in just 18 games, and two seasons of 200+ attempts in the two years prior. Granted, the increased number of attempts has a lot to do with pace of play and offensive style, but if Gardner can get to the line a bit more and consistently knock down those shots, the ceiling is raised for him and the rest of the team.

Goal: Make more 3s.

This was the easiest goal we could come up with for any player. Franklin was second on the team in scoring with 11.1 points per game, and as the season went on it felt like he got more comfortable. But his 3-point shot lagged behind, and despite a few solid efforts, the Indiana transfer made just 29.6 percent of his 3-pointers.

Franklin wasn’t billed as a lights out shooter when he transferred to UVa, but he did make 42.6 percent from long range in his sophomore season with the Hoosiers. In Virginia’s NIT run to end the season, we saw signs of life, however. Tony Bennett said that the coaches had found a hitch in Franklin’s shot and were attempting to work through it, and it seemed like in their win at North Texas, Franklin figured something out. He went 5-for-7 from deep in that game, including some big shots down the stretch. He made five of his11 attempts in the next game against St. Bonaventure, too. Was that late success fluky or did Franklin truly figure out his shot? If he did, then he has the ability and experience to become one of the better guards in the conference.

Goal: Keep competing for minutes.

Virginia fans didn’t get to see much of Murray in 2021-22, as the freshman from New Zealand averaged just 7.7 minutes per contest. UVa fans did see flashes of ability in the close loss to Iowa, when Murray came off the bench and scored 14 points, making four of six 3-pointers. Murray would ultimately be relegated to the bench most of the time, which can be typical of freshmen learning Bennett’s defensive schemes.

Now, Murray has a bit of a different challenge. Instead of trying to learn the schemes and break through, he now finds himself a year older but in a much more crowded group of wing players competing for minutes. With so much attention on the first-years joining the team, Murray is flying a bit under the radar going into the season, and if he can carve out a role for himself he could be the team’s biggest surprise this season. And if the minutes don’t come right way, Murray will simply need to keep battling for time.

Goal: Be all the time the productive player we’ve seen occasionally.

Along with Beekman, Shedrick has been earmarked as a breakout candidate on the Virginia roster. He saw a much larger role last season than he did as a freshman, playing just under 21 minutes per game, scoring 6.9 points per contest. One area where Shedrick demonstrated his potential was as a shot blocker, where he averaged 1.9 blocks per contest. He shared time at the center spot with Francisco Caffaro, which will be the case again this year.

But now, if Shedrick is going to become a breakout star, he needs to take control of that place in the starting lineup and up his minutes per game. Shedrick has a ton of potential on both ends of the floor, now it’s time to see him be more consistent. Last season, the Holly Springs (NC) native would have a big performance, and then follow it up with a quiet effort in the next game. If Shedrick can be closer to the best version of himself more often, then the sky’s the limit for him, and the ceiling for the entire team is raised.

Goal: Provide a spark.

Given everything we just said about Shedrick, it seems that Caffaro may play a bit less than he did a year ago. That’s far from a given, and Bennett clearly trusts his veteran center to play valuable minutes, as we saw him do last season. Caffaro knows the system and while he has limitations, he can still provide quality minutes for this team at a minimum, and could continue to push Shedrick for playing time, too.

Caffaro is a high-energy player, which can be a valuable commodity, even off the bench. UVa’s best teams under Bennett have had glue guys and important contributors from the bench that simply come in and make a play or two and do their job on the defensive end. If Shedrick does take a leap forward and Caffaro can play that high-energy glue guy role, the ceiling is higher for Virginia in the post.