Virginia men basketball have kicked off their season with a new head coach and a bevy of newcomers, as well as questions aplenty for the new year. We’ll start with a dive into the positives and negatives that can be gleaned from the Cavaliers’ 65-56 victory over Campbell the season opener on Wednesday night.
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Every coach remembers their first win and head coach Ron Sanchez (I admit, it’s still hard to write that) will be pleased to start off with the win. This was a feisty Campbell team. The fact that they were tabbed to finish 13th in the 14-team Coastal Athletic Association just proves that head coaches are way too busy to worry about preseason rankings. The Camels have a ton of height for a low-major program with five players over 6’ 8”. The team transitioned well from defense into their offense and they showed they can shoot the deep ball as well anyone against Virginia: they went 11/29, or 38% against the Sanchez Pack Line. Campbell showed nice touch, converting their first three treys.
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Jacob Cofie, a first year forward from Seattle, Washington, had a debut for the ages. He scored a game-high 16 points on 7/8 shooting. He made his first five shots as a Hoo, went 2/3 from beyond the arc, grabbed six rebounds and had a block and a steal (which he converted for the only fast breaks points on the night for Virginia.) He was aggressive rolling to the basket and attacking the rim. He’s a keeper.
Plus
Not to be outdone, fellow freshman Ishan Sharma showed that all the hype about his shooting was not overstated. It took Sharma just 15 seconds (!) from the time he first checked in to record his first three for Virginia. He went 2/3 from behind the line in his debut and he has a smooth stroke off a quick release.
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Duke transfer TJ Power’s first five minutes were pretty solid. He slid a beautiful no-look pass to a rolling Blake Buchanan and followed that up with a smooth three-pointer. Then Cofie and Sharma took over – Cofie had 10 points on 4/4 shooting while Sharma was 2/2 from deep – and Power was relatively anonymous, looking very much like the guy who only averaged 6 minutes/game for the Blue Devils.
Plus
Blake Buchanan, as befits a guy who spent the offseason training with the legendary Mike Curtis, looks much bigger and stronger than the young, oft-overwhelmed young man we saw last year. BB aggressively rolled to the rim all night, and he gathered a game-high seven rebounds. What really stood out was his passing. He had five assists and he displayed a mid-season level of familiarity with Cofie playing the big-man two-man game. He still is an adventure at the free-throw line – 4/9 on the night – but it was encouraging that he actually got to shoot those nine free throws.
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Anyone harboring hopes that this team was going to play faster is going to be in for a season of disappointment. The men were painfully deliberate – their only fastbreak points came on a Cofie steal-and-flush – and there were still many possessions that got deep into the shot clock. While most speculated, including the Virginia media guys, that sophomore transfer Dai Dai Ames was the de facto point guard (following the departure of Jalen Warley) it was Andrew Rohde who manned the point.
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Which brings us to point guard play in general. Redshirt freshman Christian Bliss did not dress out. Ames was mostly anonymous and struggled on defense to stay in front of his man. He only got 10 minutes and was not a factor for the most part. This was a tight game as Campbell kept hanging around, but late in the game, after Taine Murray and Rohde had both gone 1/2 from the line, Ames calmly stroked both his attempts from the charity stripe to ice the game. Rohde was competent, but point is not his natural position. He’s got great vision as attested by his five assists, but he also had four turnovers.
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It was a rough first half for the Virginia Pack Line. Campbell got a lot of good looks from the arc in the first half as they went 6/13 from deep. They also found plenty of space in the paint. The Cavalier defense was much stouter in the second half and Campbell had to resort to chucking threes as 10 of their first 14 shots were from deep. While Campbell was tossing clunkers, Virginia opened up an 11-point lead, thereby forcing Campbell to chase the rest of the game.
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Announcer Mack McCarthy: “If you can force the offense to take a contested 2, that’s a win in my book.” He was talking about Campbell and their struggles at the rim and from the wing in the second half. He could have been talking about Isaac McKneely, who buried his first three-point attempt. McKneely made three other buckets; all were heavily contested, all inside the arc. He made them because he’s really good, but a steady diet of long 2’s, the most inefficient shot in basketball, will make for some ugly basketball. It was good to see McKneely hunting his shot, and apparently his “aggressiveness” has been a point of concentration all this offseason. Virginia is going to be more successful this year if McKneely is shooting more threes than long 2s.
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Video review only continues to get more intrusive. New to ACC play this year is the requirement that all three referees must review the video in two different pairings of two. While I applaud the notion of “getting it right” on principle, this setup just takes too long.
Plus
With just 7:38 left in the game, the Cavaliers forced their first shot-clock violation. 75 seconds later, the D forced their second shot violation. Virginia’s defense got better in the second half and they forced seven of their eleven turnovers after the break.
What’s Next: Virginia hosts Coppin State next Monday, November 11th. Gametime is 7pm and the game is on ACC Network Extra.
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