The news from Tony Bennett’s Tuesday ACC Tournament preview presser was that sophomore guard Andrew Rohde was, in fact, a healthy scratch in Saturday’s home finale with Georgia Tech.
“Practice-wise, I thought, let’s take a look at Taine (Murray). He shot the ball well in practice, and I said, let’s see if we can stretch the defense a little bit,” Bennett told reporters. “And so, I gave Taine a look early, and I thought, you know, he had a couple of nice drives, was playing well, there was good chemistry the way the game was going, and I thought about, you know, using Andrew in that game, but we just shortened the rotation with Dante (Harris) and Taine, and then at times we use you know, whether you want to call our bigger lineup, and we had Jake (Groves) and Ryan (Dunn) and either Blake (Buchanan) or Jordan (Minor), but it just went that way.
Murray rewarded Bennett’s experimentation, scoring 12 points in a career-high 28 minutes, shooting 5-of-10 from the floor and 2-of-5 from three.
Bennett hadn’t gotten that level of production from Rohde since the Dec. 27 win over Morgan State, when the St. Thomas transfer scored 10 points on 4-of-8 shooting, 2-of-5 from three, in 31 minutes.
Rohde has logged 28 or more minutes in 15 games this season; he has scored in double-digits just three times.
He has also struggled mightily from three-point range of late, shooting 12-of-50 (24.0 percent) from behind the arc since Jan. 1.
The issue there has allowed opponents to cheat off him defensively to give extra attention to Reece Beekman and Isaac McKneely, making it harder for the scorers to get clean looks.
Murray, in limited action this season, is shooting 45.5 percent from three, and has as many games with two or more made threes (3) since Jan. 1 as Rohde does.
Makes you wonder why Bennett didn’t at least experiment with the switch to Murray sooner.
“I mean, he’s helped us get to this spot, and like Taine, like Jordan, like, and all of them, just be ready, practice well, be ready, because different games call on different things,” Bennett said of Rohde, confirming that Rohde is still in the mix for minutes, despite not getting off the bench in the Georgia Tech game.
“It wasn’t injury-related. It was just the rotation and what I thought was going on in that game,” Bennett said.
Virginia (22-9) will face the winner of the Clemson–Boston College game on Thursday in the ACC Tournament quarterfinals on Thursday.
Who Bennett goes with will depend on the matchup.
“The game will dictate it, but that was a nice rotation, the way that game played,” he said, referencing the Georgia Tech game. “They defended well, spaced the floor and played good basketball, so we went with that. Could be the same next game, but certainly other guys could step up, and you know, you wish at this stage you could say this is our hard and fast seven, eight guys, unless there’s foul trouble. But we’re in a spot, I think, where everyone has helped us, and everyone needs to be ready. And you know, again, what the game dictates.”
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Chris Graham
