Everything was going so well. Virginia had gotten a good win on the road at Notre Dame, the new year had begun, and the Hoos were ready to beat down on an overrated Virginia Tech team.
And then, out of the ashes of 2020, Covid-19 reared its ugly head and halted the Virginia men’s basketball season for a second time.
All we know at this point is that a staff member tested positive and that contact tracing is underway. The Virginia Tech game is the only one affected at the moment, though that could change in the coming days.
Hopefully the damage remains minimal, because another extended delay would cause a lot of problems for this team.
Let’s start with the obvious: this stops the momentum that the Hoos built with the win at Notre Dame. The significance of momentum should not be underestimated, and it’s difficult to build any when your season is put on hold every few games.
Missed games are also going to mean less opportunities with which to grow as a team. There’s no better place to improve than on the court, and with less games and less practice, those chances to improve are significantly decreased.
If games keep getting postponed and have to be lumped together down the line, that process goes out the window. Tony Bennett needs practice time as well as game time to get his team up to scratch, and both or one of those things could be damaged with this latest development.
At the moment though, all we can do is hope that nobody else was exposed to COVID-19 and that the team can get back on the court as soon as possible.
First year playing time
Tony Bennett went out and brought in the 18th-ranked recruiting class in the country this season, corralling three top-150 recruits, including one ranked in the top 40.
That’s a very good recruiting class by Virginia standards, although as defending national champions one might have hoped for slightly better. Either way, the Hoos welcomed three very talented freshmen to grounds this year.
Yet two of them have barely played, and the third’s playing time has been gradually dwindling over the last couple of games.
It’s certainly understandable why this is the case, as first years rarely come into Tony Bennett’s program and start playing immediately. Learning the defense takes time, and acclimating to the style of offense and the slow tempo only comes with practice.
Many have correctly pointed out, however, that this sends a message to the higher-rated recruits that Virginia now likes to target. What does it say that a top-40 recruit like Jabri Abdur-Rahim comes into the system and gets very limited playing time?
To be clear, I’m not advocating for a change in style or even for these guys to get more time. I’m simply acknowledging that highly-ranked high schoolers are not getting the right impression from a coach that will in all likelihood give them significantly less playing time than they might receive at another school.
The other issue with guys like Abdur-Rahim and Carson McCorkle not playing a lot is that they might transfer. These are guys that have the potential to grow into all-ACC caliber players in the coming years, but the transfer market is becoming busier each year.
I don’t know anything about the character or the current mindset of these guys. What I do know is that the way college basketball works these days, players that are not getting the playing time they think they deserve tend to transfer out. Maybe that’s not the way it should be, but unfortunately it is.
They’ll probably stay, and this is all just hypothetical, but it is something to consider moving forward.
The Hauser dilemma
Let’s rewind back to 2019 when the Hauser brothers were set to transfer from Marquette. Initially viewed as a package deal, the two quickly narrowed their list to Michigan State, Wisconsin, and Virginia.
But as time wore on reports began to circulate that they were thinking of going their separate ways, and soon after that, it became official. Joey would go to Tom Izzo and Michigan State, Sam to Tony Bennett and Virginia.
The funny thing is that at first, Joey seemed like the better prospect. He had two years of eligibility left, was shooting the ball about as well as his older brother, and possessed a quickness that Sam never had.
Anyway, the two of them were moved to the backburner as their respective teams began their seasons. They were both able to participate in team practices, but due to the NCAA’s transfer rule, neither was allowed to play in games for a year.
Then the praise began. From coaches, from players, from managers—everyone started lauding Sam Hauser as one of the best Virginia players of the Bennett era.
Mamadi Diakite and Braxton Key, in particular, talked up their new power forward quite a bit. Key was quoted as saying that he believed Hauser could be an All-American, while Diakite felt that he could become ACC Player of the Year.
Given this praise, it’s understandable that us fans came into the season expecting great things out of the Marquette transfer. The first game of the season only served to raise those expectations, Hauser going for 19 points in just 26 minutes and hitting all three threes he attempted.
Six games later, we’re experiencing the fallout from all that praise.
Since the Towson game, Hauser has been relatively underwhelming, never coming close to the heights that many raised him to prior to the season. His defense has also been widely criticized, the general consensus being that Sam is a liability on that end of the court.
So yes, expectations need to be lowered a bit, but by no means is Hauser a bad player.
In fact, he’s a very good one who is still finding his niche in this Virginia offense. He’s only played seven games in a Virginia uniform, and like everybody else, he needs time to adjust.
Just take a look at Wednesday’s road game against Notre Dame. He was only 5-13 from the field, but pulled down 10 boards and hit a couple of massive threes with the clock ticking down to ice the game for the Hoos.
Tony Bennett has given him more minutes than any of his teammates, and that ought to be good enough for the rest of us.
Sam is one of only a few players on this team that can create his own shot, has a midrange game far above that of his peers, and can clearly hit the three. His defense needs work, it’s true, but to be fair there probably wouldn’t be so much emphasis on it if Jay Huff could learn to keep himself out of foul trouble.
Hauser’s shooting percentages are good, and they are sure to increase as he settles into the offense. It’s still early in the season, and while he has yet to live up to the previously set expectations, Sam has shown that he has the skill to get there eventually.
Kihei Clark’s resurgence
Speculation was high that Tony Bennett was losing confidence in Kihei Clark after taking away his starting spot for two games. Luckily, that just turned out to be an academic issue (which isn’t good either), but it wouldn’t have been much of a surprise given the way the 5-foot-9 point guard started the season.
Kihei was 4-13 from the field over the first three games with no made threes and the same amount of turnovers as assists. He had largely failed in his job of running the offense, looking less like the player he ended last season as and more like the one that started it.
He was finally reinstated in the starting five after the 18-day break, having a quiet but efficient game against William & Mary with six points and four assists.
Then came the Gonzaga matchup, which started out as a disaster due to a host of early turnovers. While Kihei did give away the ball six times by the end of the game, he also had a team-high 19 points and was the lone bright spot in an embarrassing second half.
That outing was a good sign in spite of the six turnovers, and Kihei capped his return to great basketball by leading the team to victory over Notre Dame.
He went for 19 points again, dishing out five assists and going turnover-free. It was nearly flawless play from the junior guard, who went 7-12 from the field and 2-4 from behind the arc.
Given the last two performances, it’s safe to say that the Kihei Clark of days past is back to stay, and that his resurgence will continue having a very positive effect on the team as a whole.
Image – Virginia Athletics