1. Virginia dragged its way to the NCAA Tournament but this team wasn’t close to competing for championships.

UVa bowed out of the NCAA Tournament and ended the season in embarrassing fashion on Tuesday night, but for Cavalier fans following the team all year the latest blowout loss was nothing new. UVa had a few highs throughout the season, beating four teams in the NCAA Tournament field and finishing the season with 23 wins and a third-place finish in the ACC with a somewhat unexpected NCAA Tournament bid. But while they had metrics somewhat comparable with the rest of the bubble, this team never really passed the eye test outside of an eight-game winning streak from January into February.

UVa lost six games by 20+ points this season, the same amount of losses by that margin suffered over an eight-year stretch from January 2014 through November 2022. Some of those losses came against quality teams, like North Carolina, Wisconsin and Duke. But the Hoos also dropped blowouts to non-tournament teams like Memphis, Notre Dame, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest. Add the Mountain West’s sixth-place finisher to that list now.

Virginia’s defensive efficiency was solid, ranked seventh nationally heading into the final few weeks. But that number was largely built through blocks (fourth nationally) and steals (44th), and while the other metrics were solid, the defense waned when it played better competition. Virginia’s offense, however, was a disaster for large stretches of the season, finishing 210th nationally in efficiency, just a few spots behind a 9-24 Georgia Southern team that started the year 0-12. UVa scored 60+ points in regulation just once over the final nine games (72 at BC) and failed to reach 50 in five of those games.

Not exactly a strong finish.

It’s great to get 23 wins and making the NCAA Tournament is always notable. But Virginia never looked like a good/great team all year, and relied on sneaking by with a lot of close wins, beating up on bad teams (13 wins against teams outside the top 100 in KenPom), while getting undressed against teams with a pulse and sometimes by teams that didn’t really have one.

Tuesday’s loss in Dayton was simply confirmation of what we’ve seen all year.

2. UVa didn’t have the roster it needed to compete, largely because transfer additions didn’t work out particularly well.

Like many college basketball programs, UVa saw a lot of roster turnover from one season to the next. The Cavaliers brought back just one starter (Reece Beekman), two younger role players asked to take on more responsibility (Isaac McKneely and Ryan Dunn), and one veteran role player (Taine Murray). Everyone else was suiting up for the Hoos for the first time.

Three of the four transfer addition spent most of their career at low-major programs before arriving at UVa and it showed.

Jake Groves was about as expected, playing off the bench, scoring 7.4 points per game and shooting 45.9 percent from deep. He didn’t always change games, but he did have the impact consistent with the incoming expectations.

But the other three didn’t, at least not this year.

Jordan Minor was brought in to fill a huge need in the frontcourt, and barely played for the first half of the season. He certainly had his moments in the back half. Minor ultimately scored just 4.3 points per game and wasn’t a major factor. Dante Harris was a bench player that missed a bunch of time to injury, and finished the year playing just 13.8 minutes per game, shooting 28 percent from the floor. Andrew Rohde was probably the biggest disappointment, as his offensive game didn’t translate from a great freshman season at St. Thomas. He played 25.2 minutes per game, but shot just 29.3 percent from the field, 25.7 percent from long range, and scored 4.3 points per game.

It’s worth noting that UVa’s freshmen didn’t do a lot, either, so it’s not all on these four guys. But sometimes the portal shines on a program and sometimes it doesn’t. This year, the talented added didn’t match the talent that left, and this team was significantly worse than the last.

3. Without Beekman, it would’ve been really bleak.

While this 3-2-1 has been largely negative, we should give Beekman one final bit of praise. UVa’s senior guard flirted with the NBA before deciding to return to school, and while he wasn’t able to lead Virginia to a very successful season, he was holding the team together for most of the year. Beekman led the team in scoring at 14.3 points per game and dished out 6.2 assists per contest. The Milwaukee native also won ACC Defensive Player of the Year for the second straight year, becoming only the third player to do so.

His decision to come back got UVa back to the NCAA Tournament. If he hadn’t returned, UVa would have gone in the portal to replace him, but the returns almost surely wouldn’t have been good. Beekman might not have been the flashiest player or hit the highest highs, but he was a steady presence for UVa during a period of transition. It’s a shame that he didn’t get an NCAA Tournament win in his career but he accomplished a lot in his four seasons in Charlottesville.

1. Is the UVa basketball brand better today than it was in 2019, pre-title?

If you went on social media on Tuesday night, it was pretty brutal for UVa. Folks from around the country either had a joke, criticism, or complaint that the Cavaliers took a spot from another at-large team that didn’t get in. Social media doesn’t keep a program from winning, but you have to wonder how much damage UVa has done to its brand, which obviously hit an all-time high when the Hoos won the 2019 national title.

There’s no doubt that UVa hasn’t been able to capitalize on the title. At this point, we have a five-year sample size. There are other factors that contributed to that, like the pandemic and then the rise of the transfer portal and NIL, but UVa hasn’t been able to break through and capitalize on its run of success, regardless of the circumstances.

After UMBC, many pundits and fans wrote off the UVa program until the Cavaliers proved those folks wrong a year later. And now, it feels like the backlash to Virginia’s slow pace and poor offense is at an all-time high. Perhaps its because they were on the bubble and under the microscope, but the further they get from winning, the harder the pitch may be for recruits.

If fans of other teams don’t like UVa’s brand of basketball, who cares, right? But if that perception costs you in recruiting, then that’s a very bad thing. The rising senior class was in 6th grade when Virginia won the title, and the version they know is one that can win some games and compete in the ACC, but struggles to score and doesn’t produce a lot of pros (though Beekman and Dunn could both get drafted this year).

While branding isn’t everything, its certainly not nothing, either.

2. What changes can UVa make to fix things in 2024-25?

After Tuesday’s loss in Dayton, Tony Bennett said that everything should be reviewed to improve in the years to come. The obvious change that needs to happen is on the offensive end. Virginia’s offense has drifted from fine to flat-out embarrassing throughout this season, and the Wahoos struggled to do so many of the basic things: shooting, layups, free throws. The offense also didn’t create open shots consistently, and once opponents figured out how to defend them, around mid-February, they didn’t have a counter.

Players matter more than schemes, probably, but plenty of teams that aren’t loaded with All-Americans score a lot of points by putting the ball in the right hands and giving that player or those players options and opportunities to get good shots. UVa isn’t just below average on offense, the Hoos are struggling to hit basic benchmarks like 50 points. Perhaps Bennett needs to look at opening things up or bring in someone with a fresh perspective to help modernize things. But doing the same two or three things over and over isn’t the answer, unless he can suddenly bring in the talent level the program saw from 2014-2019.

Virginia also needs to take a hard look at its recruiting strategy and see if there might be a better way to approach things. This roster had too many players with skill deficiencies, and they all had to play together, which was a recipe for disaster at times particularly offensively. And even with that, the Wahoos still won 23 games, so a few fixes and finding guys with skill and athleticism first and whatever other things are needed second, may produce better results.

UVa’s next season will be determined in short order by roster additions

Virginia will turn the page again in the days to come and try to rebuild for 2024-25.

As of now, Beekman, Groves, and Minor are gone. Another (Dunn) is likely headed to the NBA Draft.

That leaves UVa with the following, given that nobody transfers, which is unlikely: Harris, Christian Bliss, McKneely, Rohde, Elijah Gertrude, incoming wing Ishan Sharma, Leon Bond, Murray, Anthony Richardson, incoming forward Jacob Cofie, and Blake Buchanan.

Maybe I’m wrong, but that doesn’t look like a roster built to compete for anything meaningful, as presently designed.

So the coaches clearly need to go out and find multiple starter- or rotation-caliber players and hope they pick the right ones. As for needs, Virginia probably needs a starting-caliber point guard, or Bliss will need to take the job, as Harris seems like a complimentary player, if he’s a fit at all. UVa also needs scoring and athleticism on the wing, and scoring in general across the roster, particularly outside shooters to space the floor.

The frontcourt is really young, so a veteran big or two is another need. The Hoos could use a good screener and a player capable of playing in the post at the ACC level.

You’re not going to hit on all transfers, so they’ll probably need some role flexibility and redundancy at some of these spots. Players like McKneely and Buchanan should be in key roles, and perhaps some of the other players listed on the roster can play in roles. But the Cavaliers will need to replace what they lose from this year and a lot more to get back to competitive play.