It may only be a few games into a long conference schedule, but the ACC title race is already beginning to take shape. Contenders are rising, favorites are falling, and Wake Forest and Boston College are a combined 0-8 in league play. In other words, business as usual.
The first few weeks have not been without their surprises though. Teams like Clemson and Virginia Tech, picked 10th and 11th in the preseason poll, have emerged as contenders, while fourth-picked North Carolina has dragged their way to a 2-2 record.
The Heels have won two in a row after dropping their first two games, but they were two nail-biters that did nothing to reassure Tar Heel fans. Carolina is by no means out of the discussion, but they are at a significant disadvantage to Virginia, Louisville, and Duke, all of who have gotten off to 3-0 starts. Florida State is also in decent shape, sitting at 1-1 following a loss to Clemson.
If there was one certain thing coming into this season, it was that it was going to be hectic. That has been true even without the cancellations, quarantines, and other COVID-19 problems that have impacted so many teams. It’s going to be a close race coming down the stretch, made even more chaotic by the difference in games played that will surely factor in at some point.
With that said, favorites are emerging atop the pack, and with a number of pivotal matchups this week those will become even more solidified. Saturday will see a matchup between two of them, with Virginia and Clemson meeting for the first and only time this season.
It’s too early to start making picks, but right now Clemson and Virginia are at the top of my list. A Virginia win on Saturday puts them firmly in the driver’s seat, while a Clemson victory gets them back on level terms record-wise with the Hoos and establishes them as the best team in the conference.
Virginia has had a favorable start to ACC play, thus far defeating the only three winless teams in the conference. Their next game will be a rematch against one of those, 0-4 Notre Dame coming to Charlottesville after Virginia won in South Bend a couple weeks ago.
But it gets hard for the Hoos real quick after that friendly introduction to league play. The previously mentioned Clemson game comes first, and then they host NC State and Georgia Tech—two teams that both seem to be hitting their stride. Games at home against Syracuse and at Virginia Tech will close out January.
What Virginia does in that period will determine their position in the ACC pecking order. Emerge with one or even no losses and they’re in pole position for another ACC title. Come out with three or more losses and it’ll be tough to recover.
We’ll see how everything plays out, but Virginia is in a good spot with regard to the developing ACC regular season title race.
The ‘big three’
Through three conference games, Kihei Clark, Sam Hauser, and Jay Huff have become the clear leaders of the team. It’s almost resemblant of what we saw out of the Guy-Jerome-Hunter trio a couple years back, in that both sets of players have teams built primarily around their play. The conference scoring averages of both groups are also very similar, even if Virginia has only played three ACC games this year.
It’s too early to say whether this year’s group will come close to reaching the bar set by the national champions. Regardless, the indication is that what we’ve experienced the last three games is here to stay, and that it will prove as important to the team’s success as it was in the national title year.
Without getting too deep into the specifics of what each of these three players brings to the team, let’s just say that their different skill sets work nicely alongside each other. With Clark making smart passes and nifty drives, Hauser is given more freedom to operate in the midrange and Huff in the post. All three are versatile players who play good defense and can be relied upon to score in a variety of ways.
And like with the 2018-19 team, the supporting cast can step in when needed. The other players are slowly becoming more comfortable in their roles, guys like Trey Murphy, Casey Morsell, and Reece Beekman recognizing what they have to do to help the team.
But ultimately it all comes back to Clark, Huff, and Hauser. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing at all—it worked pretty well in 2018-19.
Huff’s foul trouble
When Jay Huff came onto this Virginia team as a first year, the thing keeping him off the floor was his defense. He was a pretty bad defender in his first two years, finally making some massive strides in his third year before blossoming into a great interior defender in year four.
But he’s a defender with a lot of flaws, that has always been clear, and no flaw looms greater than the unfortunate tendency to commit far too many fouls.
Huff’s playing time has been continually limited as a direct result of foul trouble. He continually commits stupid fouls, seemingly incapable of restraint when it comes to fouling. It’s the little fouls that get Huff, the pull of the shirt from behind or the unnecessary lowering of the arms.
A 7-foot-1 forward like Huff is rarely going to go for 35+ minutes like Hauser and Clark might, but a player of his caliber should be playing more than 22 minutes per game. Point to Tony Bennett’s policy of sitting players who pick up early fouls all you want, but really the responsibility falls to the player to stay out there.
With an average of 3.3 fouls committed in conference play (the highest on the team by a considerable amount), this is an aspect of his game that needs to improve. Every minute that Huff sits hurts this team, and the easiest way to gain those minutes back is to stop forcing Bennett to bench him.
The second guard
Kihei Clark has long since established himself as Virginia’s point guard, but the occupation of the other guard slot is constantly in flux. Putting aside Trey Murphy, who is more of a swingman, there are multiple players vying for playing time as the second guard in the rotation.
The three guys getting those minutes at the moment are Reece Beekman, Casey Morsell, and Tomas Woldetensae. Of the three, Woldetensae has the lowest ceiling. The senior has always been a bit one-dimensional in that he’s primarily a three-point shooter, and even that has been a struggle for him this season. Woldo is also a player that needs a lot of minutes to get in rhythm, and that’s just not a possibility with the depth of this team. I’d wager that he keeps getting around 10 minutes a game.
What I find more interesting is the distribution of time between Beekman and Morsell. I’ve long been on the Morsell wagon, and nothing would make me happier than seeing the sophomore start hitting shots consistently. But that’s just not the reality right now, in spite of his ability to take the ball to the rack and play good defense. Morsell continues to struggle shooting the ball, something that his ongoing quarantine will not help.
In his stead, Beekman has really stepped up on both ends of the floor. He didn’t hit a shot against Boston College, but had 12 points against Wake. The freshman guard is a capable shooter and possesses a lightning fast first step that he uses to blow by defenders. He has a very bright future ahead of him, but there are definitely aspects of his game that need improvement.
In the end, I think that Beekman is going to be the one who gets the starting spot, at least in the near future. Morsell is going to need some practice time to recover from his quarantine, and he’s generally better coming off the bench anyway. The two of them will keep splitting minutes though. Playing time is going to be largely situational, and I think it’s a safe bet to say that Tony Bennett will utilize them in a similar capacity.
Image – Virginia Athletics