Ron Sanchez, in his first and maybe only season as the UVA Basketball coach, has, to this point, faced four power conference opponents, and has a record of 1-3 in those games, with the three losses by 18 or more points.
If this looks and feels like what we saw out of the 2023-2024 UVA team, you’re onto something.
The issues with the roster that Sanchez helped recruit when Tony Bennett was still the head coach are myriad.
We’ll start with TJ Power, a former five-star high school recruit who spent a year at Duke. Power has lost his starting spot, for a probably obvious reason: the analysts who rated him a five-star should have their credentials taken away.
Power, a 6’9” perimeter player, is averaging 2.1 points in 15.0 minutes per game, he’s shooting 25 percent from the field, and it’s OK to admit that you can’t remember any of his six made field goals in Virginia’s eight games.
Two other newcomers in the frontcourt, San Diego State transfer Elijah Saunders (10.3 ppg, 5.0 rebounds/g, 43.1% FG, 38.1% 3FG), and freshman Jacob Cofie (8.4 ppg, 6.4 rebounds/g, 50.0% FG, 23.8% 3FG), can be up-and-down in terms of productivity, but both have clear upsides.
The other guy getting minutes in the frontcourt is 6’11” sophomore Blake Buchanan (6.8 ppg. 5.4 rebounds/g, 54.8% FG), who has not really progressed much since a so-so freshman season.
Next up, there’s no depth at point guard behind Kansas State transfer Dai Dai Ames, which came to a head in Wednesday’s 87-69 loss at #13 Florida, when Ames had to sub out with 12:08 to go in the first half after picking up a second foul.
Virginia led by as many as nine in the opening minutes; his departure precipitated a 13-0 Florida run that gave the Gators the lead for good, as Andrew Rohde, a 6’6” combo guard, struggled, as he has consistently the past couple of years, when he had to move over to the one spot.
Rohde (9.1 ppg, 53.5% FG, 47.6% 3FG) is a capable two guard, adept at distributing the ball from the wing, and creating shots for himself in the paint, with a nice floater that he developed in the offseason, but, a backup point guard, he is not.
The status of redshirt freshman point guard Christian Bliss is still unknown, and also unknown is how Bliss would fit in.
Sanchez has been trying to give minutes to another freshman, Ishan Sharma, a 6’4” perimeter shooter, who has been struggling to adapt to playing the point when he gets minutes there.
And now, to Isaac McKneely (13.1 ppg, 46.5% FG, 50.0% 3FG), the team’s leading scorer.
The issue, to me, with McKneely, is, he’s pretty much the same guy he was last year, a streaky jump shooter who opponents can take out of a game by overplaying him coming off screens because they know he’s not able to dribble past them and finish at the rim (he’s just 3-of-10 on shots at the rim this season through eight games).
This makes iMac a feast-or-famine guy: he had 23 points on 8-of-9 shooting (6-of-6 from three) in the win over Villanova; and a total of 26 (on 8-of-25 shooting, 8-of-20 from three) in the blowout losses to Tennessee, St. John’s and Florida.
For all the talk about changes to the offense, Virginia is still playing at the slowest pace in D1 (63.9 possessions per game), getting too much of its offense in halfcourt (93.8% of offensive possessions, second in D1) against set defenses, and not getting enough of its offense around the basket (14.5 shots at the rim per game, last in D1).
Those are all consistent with the last few years of the Tony Bennett era, with one notable exception: the 2023-2024 team averaged 8.1 turnovers per game, second-fewest in D1; the 2024-2025 team is averaging 12.3, which ranks 173rd, and 19.9 percent turnover rate ranks 289th nationally.
These are all factors in the UVA offense averaging 1.063 points per possession through eight games, ranking 157th nationally, which, sure, is an improvement over last season’s numbers (1.051 PPP, 200th nationally), but hasn’t been enough to make up for the shocking issues this group is having trying to play defense.
The UVA defense is giving up 0.999 points per possession, ranking 99th nationally, which would be the highest number for a UVA team since the 2007-2008 Dave Leitao-coached team that finished 17-16 and played in something called the CBI in the postseason.
The glaring issue: interior defense.
Florida was 16-of-23 at the rim in the 87-69 win over the ‘Hoos this week; St. John’s was a cool 13-of-17 at the rim.
Both took advantage of UVA’s adjustments to try to mitigate the constant paint touches by guards to get open shots on the perimeter – Florida was 10-of-25 (40.0 percent) from three (the Gators had been shooting 32.9 percent from three coming into the game); St. John’s was 10-of-24 (41.7 percent) from three (SJU is shooting 33.7 percent from three on the season).
Can it get fixed? The saving grace is that the ACC looks awful, if judging from the two wins in 16 games in the SEC/ACC Trainwreck.
North Carolina (4-4), which lost by 15 at home to Alabama, has roster issues. Pitt, the second-best team in the conference coming into the week, lost by 33 at Mississippi State.
Everybody sucks, basically, so Sanchez has an opportunity to get the ship righted when the calendar flips to 2025, and we get into the meat of the conference schedule, though, to be fair, so do the other 16 ACC coaches not named Jon Scheyer.
Maybe Christian Bliss gets out there, and is a viable option to get 15-20 minutes a game off the bench backing up Dai Dai Ames and spelling Andrew Rohde.
And maybe Elijah Saunders and Jacob Cofie are more up than down in terms of productivity in the post.
The more effective they are, the more paint touches we see from the guards, means more clean looks from the perimeter for Isaac McKneely.
And the more reps they all get on D, the more comfortable, and more effective, they’ll all be on that end.
There’s talent here, but with Power not panning out, with the lack of offensive firepower beyond McKneely and Saunders, this team is too reliant on everything that had been wrong in the past couple of years under Bennett – needing to control tempo, play a perfect game in terms of limiting turnovers on offense, preventing buckets in transition, rebounding and being in position on defense.
This is not the way any of us want to see the Tony Bennett era end, but it looks to me that the problems with the roster are going to be too much for Ron Sanchez to be able to overcome to then be able to get that interim tag off his title.
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Chris Graham
