Takeaways from the 2022-23 season following UVa's finale
Having fallen to 13-seed Furman last week on a devastating 3-pointer following a mind-numbing turnover in the game’s final seconds, UVa’s NCAA Tournament run was over as quickly as it began.
It was and remains a bitter pill to swallow for Cavalier fans who have now seen the Hoos struggled to win an NCAA Tournament game since winning it all four years ago.
Before UVa heads into another important offseason, we’re taking a look at what the postseason exit and the 32 games that preceded it tell us about where the program is as it heads into Tony Bennett’s 15th season in Charlottesville.
Virginia wasn’t as good as the ranking or seed would suggest.
No fan is going to complain about being highly ranked or receiving a high seed in the NCAA Tournament, but it’s probably fair to say we all watched this UVa team and felt, at least at times, like the Wahoos weren’t as good as the number next to their name suggested.
They had a great start to the season and that certainly counts when the selection committee is seeding a team. They won their first eight games of the season, including Ws over Baylor and Illinois in Las Vegas and a victory at Michigan. As the season played out, though, it became clear that none of those three teams (Baylor is good but was No. 6 in KenPom and No. 5 in the AP Top 25 at the time of the game) were as good as they were expected to be when those games took place.
And as the season moved along, UVa’s play started to drop back towards what many expected from the Cavaliers in the preseason: A solid team but not a championship contender.
UVa snuck by a bad FSU team and an okay JMU team at home before Houston handed the Wahoos their first loss in December. But by then, they were No. 2 in the AP Top 25, and because they never had a losing streak longer than two games they were able to keep a relatively high ranking through the season, even as their play didn’t match up.
UVa didn’t have many bad losses and really only the blowout loss at BC applies. But the Cavaliers didn’t really beat good teams after those November wins, either. They didn’t beat Miami or Pitt, only playing those teams on the road. The home win over UNC became more and more meaningless as it became clear that the Tar Heels weren’t going to live up to their expectations. UVa’s lone win over a top-25 team in KemPom from Thanksgiving on was a home win over No. 19 Duke in OT, and we all know that could’ve easily gone the other way.
It seems pretty clear at this point that the ACC is down; maybe not as bad as some naysayers said it was but it was far from a vintage year. UVa’s 15-5 mark in conference play exemplifies that.
By the time its season ended, Virginia’s metrics lined up more with a bubble team or a team on the 8 or 9 seed line, than a 4 seed. That doesn’t mean that UVa shouldn’t have been able to beat Furman, but it also means that the margin for error is perhaps not what you would see in a typical 4 vs 13 game.
Virginia played a lot of close games throughout the season and deserves credit for winning the ones that it did. But those games also underscored the feeling that was there all along, that this UVa team wasn’t a vintage Bennett team, despite being a lofty AP Top 25 ranking.
Isaac McKneely and Ryan Dunn seem to have bright futures.
Bennett often says that after a defeat, what matters is how you respond to the loss and grow from it. And if UVa is going to do that, the experience that McKneely and Dunn earned throughout the season, and in the NCAA Tournament, will be pivotal to that response.
McKneely’s offense was on display in the loss to Furman, scoring 12 points off the bench. He flashed ability, particularly 3-point shooting throughout his freshman season, and UVa will depend on that scoring even more in 2023-24, and beyond. He has plenty to work on and will surely look to come back a stronger player after another offseason with Mike Curtis, but he appears to have the DNA of a great player: McKneely doesn’t play scared and should grow in confidence as his role gets bigger.
Dunn, meanwhile, showed flashes of real talent, too, in a different way. He clearly has the profile of an elite defensive player and UVa could desperately use one of those in the frontcourt going forward. The freshman forward saw plenty of minutes in big spots and was trusted more in crunch time as the season went along. And while Dunn made some highlight-reel plays, how close he gets to his ceiling will depend on his maturity on the offensive end of the floor. He has the ability to get to the rim and knock down outside shots, and next year he’ll be asked to do more of that, and be more consistent. Still, the tools are clearly there and Dunn, like McKneely, gave UVa fans a lot to be excited about for next season.
As the season went along, the offense got worse and the defense improved.
Virginia scored 70+ points in each of the first six games and went for 80+ in two of them. The Hoos dominated Baylor’s defense, going for 86 points in that win, including 56 points in the second half. UVa was spurred on by some great outside shooting in that game and several others early in the season. Heading into conference play, UVa had a profile similar to the 2021 team, as an elite outside-shooting team that could also get timely stops on the other end, but wasn’t elite there.
And as the season moved on, the shooting regressed towards the mean. Their offense did too, and eventually the Cavaliers needed to win games in the 50s and low 60s rather than in the 70’s. By the time we got to the NCAA Tournament, UVa ranked 75th nationally in offensive efficiency, much closer to last-year’s NIT team that ranked 85th nationally on offense, than the 2021 NCAA Tournament team that ranked 17th.
The defense improved later in the season, and Virginia needed those stops to win a lot of close games. The Hoos are up to 26th nationally in defensive efficiency and played some of their better defensive games down the stretch. Despite their reputation on the defensive end, it’s been a few years since the Cavaliers were elite in that respect. The 2020 team was all defense, ranked first nationally, and since, they were 36th in 2021 and 59th last season. UVa demonstrated some improvement, and potentially could be a bit better defensively next year, depending on personnel changes.
The Hoos continue to look for answers in the frontcourt.
Most college basketball teams get a majority of their scoring from guards. If you’ve ever read one of our game previews, that should be obvious, as we spend much more time talking about backcourt matchups than anything else these days. Still, UVa’s style of play works when the team has a rim protector and big men that can set good screens for cutting guards. And over the past several years, UVa has struggled to find the answers it needs from its bigs.
Mamadi Diakite and Jay Huff were players that could protect the rim, getting blocks and cleaning up the glass; and both were above-average offensive players later in their careers. Over the last two seasons, Virginia has had to work around issues in the post rather than taking advantage of a strength there. Kadin Shedrick’s development has been very up-and-down, stymied by injuries and uneven playing time. There are likely a number of factors that led to him not taking the leap that UVa fans expected this season, but Shedrick still flashed ability at times that shows that his story remains at least partially unwritten. He came up big in the loss to Furman, going for 15 points, 13 rebounds and four blocks. Given his drop-off in minutes, Shedrick seems like an obvious transfer candidate, but if he does return, UVa might just have to trust him to play consistent basketball and hope he hits his ceiling.
Even if he does return, Virginia probably needs more help in the post. Shedrick is good at several things when he’s on, but he’s not an elite screener, and UVa could use another option there. Regardless, the ability to become elite on either end of the floor relies on UVa’s ability to protect the paint, clean up the glass, and do damage on the offensive end. Until the Hoos find that, whether it’s Shedrick, incoming signee Blake Buchanan, or a transfer, the Hoos will continue to come up short of elite.
