The ovation at John Paul Jones Arena was for Jayden Gardner, as he exited following the most efficient performance of his college basketball career. But at least some Virginia fans were equally excited to see Igor Milicic Jr. getting off the bench for the first time.
The 6-foot-10 freshman checked in with 12:01 to play on Saturday, with the Wahoos already comfortably ahead of overmatched Fairleigh Dickinson by 28 points. When Milicic entered, the Hoos had scored 54 points; all but two had come from starters. By the 9-minute mark in the second half, guards Carson McCorkle and Taine Murray, two former four-star recruits, had also made their first appearances of the afternoon.
Like Milicic, Murray is in his first year with the UVa program. McCorkle is in his second season but played sparingly as a freshman. All three have shown flashes of being capable of contributing to a 7-4 Virginia team that has struggled at the offensive end this season. But as Saturday’s game again reminded, none has been able to earn consistent minutes in Tony Bennett’s rotation.
The trio entered the game eager to shoot, combining to make seven of their nine shot attempts, all from beyond the 3-point line. Milicic and McCorkle each knocked down a career-best three 3-pointers; Murray hit the only shot he took. UVa’s lead swelled to as many as 35 points down the game’s final 10-minute stretch.
But it’s not their offense that concerns their head coach.
“Coach Bennett talked about that during the game. Just the defense,” Gardner recalled after a 29-point performance (on 14-of-18 shooting). “He knows the offense is there, but the defense has to come along for you to get more minutes on the court.”
By his nature, Bennett is a defense-first coach. The pack-line is the foundation of his UVa program. Players who struggled to pick up the nuances of the scheme can become liabilities in the coach’s eyes, particularly when ACC opponents begin targeting perceived defensive weaknesses should they get on the floor.
“You just keep getting after it, and again, the newness of it. The ability to be in the right spots, to athletically keep guys in front and use your mind,” Bennett explained. “All that's just experience. Sometimes when we're struggling to score a little bit, we’ve got to hang in there with our defense. So a lot of it's just repetitions, continuity, know-how.”
It’s not uncommon for freshmen to struggle to find consistent minutes under Bennett. In the coach’s first 13 seasons at UVa, only eight first-years averaged more than 20 minutes a game. It’s a list that includes two current Cavaliers, Kihei Clark (26.8 minutes for the 2018-19 national title team) and Reece Beekman (29.4 last year). It’s also stocked with two players who eventually left the program, KT Harrell (22.2 in 2010-11) and Casey Morsell (21.8 in 2019-20); and some of the biggest names of the Bennett era: Joe Harris (29.4 in 2010-11), Malcolm Brogdon (22.4 in 2011-12), Justin Anderson (24.0 in 2012-13) and London Perrantes (29.9 in 2013-14).
Four others played at least 15 minutes per game, including Kyle Guy (18.6) in 2016-17. Ty Jerome averaged 13.9 minutes as a freshman that same season—and through 11 games was playing just 9.5 per game. Jerome only played more than 20 minutes twice in UVa’s first 17 games that season; over the Cavaliers’ final 17, he broke the 20-minute mark nine times. It’s one example of a player’s role increasing throughout the course of his freshman season under Bennett.
Murray is averaging 9.7 minutes in nine games this season and has eclipsed 20 minutes once—his 14-point night on 5-of-7 shooting (including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc) in 21 minutes in the last-second loss to Iowa. It looked at the time like a breakthrough performance, especially when followed by a solid 15 minutes off the bench against Pitt. But Murray missed all four of his attempts from the floor and finished minus-7 in the Wahoo’s loss at James Madison prior to exams, then played only eight late minutes against FDU.
Milicic’s season high in minutes played came in his initial coming-out performance: a career-best 11 points in 14 minutes off the bench in a mid-November win against Coppin State. After sitting out the season opener against Navy, he’s averaging 7.4 minutes over UVa’s last 10 games. He logged 12 in his 9-point night against FDU, his fourth game of 10-plus minutes.
Prior to playing the final 11 minutes against the Knights on Saturday, McCorkle’s playing time had been even more limited: Just 21 total minutes in the Hoos’ previous six games, including a pair of DNPs against Iowa and Pitt. He was minus-9 in six minutes off the bench in the loss to JMU. Before hitting three 3-pointers on Saturday, McCorkle had just three field goals on the year. McCorkle’s playing time peaked with 17 bench minutes against Radford in the second game of the year.
For the season, Milicic is plus-12 in 72 total minutes, a plus-minus that trails only center Francisco Caffaro (plus-25) among UVa bench players. McCorkle and Murray are both a net zero in plus-minus for the year.
Bennett has consistently turned to Kody Stattmann as the first guard off the bench this season, despite the senior’s team-low KenPom offensive rating (86.9) and a minus-3 in an even 12 minutes per game. Former walk-on Malachi Poindexter has worked his way into the Cavaliers’ rotation, and scored a career-high seven points in 14 minutes against FDU.
Following the win on Saturday, Bennett reiterated that roles off the bench remain up for grabs in that rotation. He knows Milicic, Murray and McCorkle have the potential to make the Hoos a better team at the offensive end. But to earn those opportunities, they still need to earn the trust of their coach on defense.
“If it was just one thing: ‘Well, this guy got beat off the dribble. This guy doesn't understand what it means to help on screens,’” Bennett explained. “There's a number of things, and then finish plays on the glass. All of it is wrapped up. It's a hard way to play. Good defense in any system’s hard. You’re asking a lot but it's required for us and we need it all.”
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