Underestimate Virginia at your own peril

This post contains no revelations.

At least not to the dedicated Virginia fan, the one who’s been slurping up offseason intel and random tidbits for months and months and months. To the average college basketball fan? To the national media member? Different story.

Metaphors are fun. Let’s do a metaphor.

Consider last season. Virginia essentially returned its best six players from the year before. The Hoos motored into opening night as a fully formed vehicle, tinkering mostly complete, the wrenches and screwdrivers cast aside. 

That vehicle looked, at first, like a monster truck. It rammed opponents aside. Baylor? Ha. Illinois? Pah. Michigan? Florida State? Easy. Virginia jumped out to 8-0 and ascended to the No. 3 ranking.

But other teams kept tinkering. They cranked their wrenches and their screwdrivers, inserting different nuts and bolts, different cogs, fitting different pieces together. The monster truck turned out to be a sedan. 

Because its engine? It was an NIT engine. 

It turns out returning the core of a team is only good if the core itself is good. So the sedan drove on, still looking shiny, still zipping by the other cars on the highway, until the other cars revved up their engines. Until the other cars raced by that sedan as it puttered along at the same pace.

But consider this season. The engine sits on the mechanic’s table. It is only partially assembled, gears and mechanisms lying around loosely. But the pieces are much bigger, much newer. Shinier.

The engine can fit inside a monster truck.

Perhaps this is a messy metaphor, but this is the way to approach the season. Virginia will experience some growing pains. It will not carry into the season the same experience, the same cohesiveness. The Hoos will probably lose a few bad games, submit some questionable performances, throw the fanbase into disgruntled uproar. But things will, eventually, coalesce. The team will hopefully peak at tournament time. Not before. Not after. Certainly not in November, like last season.

Now to zoom in. 

Consider the roster. 

Personnel improvements litter this roster. There the players were, Thursday night, trickling into the stands at the women’s exhibition game, wearing hoodies and sweats and carrying boxes of food. So much talent in those bleachers.

Here are thoughts on every player, rendered in bullet points, because bullet points are digestible and clean and cool.

• Reece Beekman: The man. Back to facilitate the offense and torment opposing offenses. Finally freed—for better or worse, and much to the delight of the social media legions—from Kihei Clark. Many believed Beekman to be shackled by his deference to Clark, and now that theory will enter the crucible. This is Beekman’s team.
  • The Big Question: Can Beekman score more? He scored 9.5 points per game last season. That number needs to increase.
• Ryan Dunn: De’Andre Hunter comparisons abound. These are somewhat misguided—the two play different games. But the sentiment behind the comparisons makes sense. Dunn is just that exciting, an absurdly bouncy athlete with a smooth jumper. He has also already spent a year absorbing the system.
  • The Big Question: Will Dunn develop into a reliable option? He only scored 2.6 points in 13.1 minutes per game last season. If Dunn produces 10 points per game, that will be plenty.
• Isaac McKneely: McKneely’s role is simple. Make threes. He made 39.2% last season, hitting 1.5 threes per game. Now, with Armaan Franklin and others not clogging McKneely’s path, and with a year under his belt, it’s his time. Shoot threes. Make them.
  • The Big Question: See above. Make threes?
• Leon Bond III: Perhaps the most compelling story. Bond redshirted last season, sitting on the bench and smiling and smiling and smiling some more, becoming a mysterious figure. Virginia unveiled him at the Blue-White scrimmage. Whoa. He is lengthy, springy, gifted with a soft touch.
  • The Big Question: Is it a mirage? Hopefully the scintillating stuff Bond displayed in that scrimmage emerges every night for the next five months. But doing something once, against your own team, in essentially a practice environment, is one thing. Doing it regularly is quite another. We shall see.
• Dante Harris: Among the most compelling stories. Harris is, according to preseason reports, a relentlessly pesky defender. He is quick. He is strong. He is blistering. He also posted some pretty heinous shooting percentages at Georgetown, shooting 28% on threes and 38% from the field in 2021-22.
  • The Big Question: Can Harris boost his efficiency? Suppose the horrible percentages stemmed from Georgetown’s lack of options, which forced Harris to take difficult shots. If he can remain disciplined and look for good shots, he can thrive in Bennett’s system. Playing him alongside Beekman is tantalizing given their defensive acuity—it’s scary given their shared shooting struggles. 
• Andrew Rohde: The duality of man. Everyone—the players, the coaches—keeps singing Rohde’s praises. But Rohde looked darn rough during the scrimmage. He missed all his outside shots, some pretty badly. He did, though, finish well at the rim a couple times. It’s wait-and-see time.
  • The Big Question: See above. All that stuff. Wait and see.
• Blake Buchanan: Excitement has swirled. People have hyped Buchanan. He certainly looked good in the scrimmage, certainly seems like a budding monster. Too early to tell.
  • The Big Question: Does Buchanan supplant Jordan Minor? See below.
• Jordan Minor: Aka Mr. Merrimack, last season’s NEC player of the year, a muscular presence, a forceful veteran. Minor bullied the NEC for a few years, then decided to transfer here. But he’s transitioning from a zone defense to the packline, a process that will take time. At 6 feet 8 inches, he’s somewhat undersized for the bruising inside role he seems likely to play.
  • The Big Question: Know who also was 6 feet 8 inches? Anthony Gill.
• Jake Groves: Another interesting case. Groves, in four seasons at Oklahoma, produced modest numbers. He scored 6.8 points per game and hit 38% of his threes last season. So he’s not exactly an established scorer. But he is another option.
  • The Big Question: Where does Groves fit? He is, like McKneely, like Rohde, supposed to be a shooter. He likely will play about 15-20 minutes per game, providing that other option, that depth, that keeps opponents guessing.
• Elijah Gertrude: Another fascinating story. Gertrude tore his ACL last year, in high school, inviting long months of grueling rehab. He is back playing, and, boy, he played well in the scrimmage. He got downhill. He drilled a deep three at the buzzer. He looked good alongside Beekman.
  • The Big Question: Will Gertrude redshirt? Signals say yes. Bennett indicated, in his latest press conference, that they’ve discussed it. The decision, he said, is up to Gertrude. Which basically means Bennett believes Gertrude should redshirt. Which backfired last season with Isaac Traudt. 
• Anthony Robinson: Not likely to play much this season. Behind Buchanan and Minor, there’s just not much room for another big man. But perhaps Robinson hops in. He certainly looked good in sparing minutes in the scrimmage.
  • The Big Question: Does he play meaningful minutes? Unlikely.
• Taine Murray: It is rather astonishing, in the transfer portal era, in an era where players who see limited minutes simply bolt, that Taine Murray is still in Charlottesville. He played in 13 games last season and made 17% of his threes.
  • The Big Question: Will Murray earn a regular spot in the rotation?  Unlikely.
• Desmond Roberts: Roberts is a local guy, from St. Anne’s-Belfield, and is a preferred walk-on. He is unlikely to play much. There probably exists a path for Roberts to earn time later in his career, a la Chase Coleman, another preferred walk-on. But it seems, at least for this season, unlikely that Roberts will play much.
  • The Big Question: Could Roberts factor in down the road? We will wait. We will see.
• Tristan How: Probably a great guy. Probably an incredible teammate. Certain to not see the floor.
  • The Big Question: Do we get one of those moments? You know the ones. Senior walk-on checks in during garbage time, scores points, sends JPJ into a paroxysm. Would be awesome.
• Christian Bliss: Redshirting.
  • The Big Question: No questions.

So there you have it. The (not at all) definitive guide to the season. We talked about why fanbases reign supreme. We did a metaphor. We ran through the roster. 

Now? 

We watch basketball.

Image – Virginia Athletics