
UVA Basketball, which hangs its hat on its Pack Line defense, is giving up 4.7 more points per game this season than it did last.
You can understand that the defense would take a step back, given the losses of two elite defensive stoppers, Reece Beekman and Ryan Dunn, to the NBA – but 4.7 more points per game, a 7.8 percent increase?
You can easily argue that the main reason Virginia is sitting at 9-11 through 20 games this season – last year, the Cavaliers were 15-5 through 20 games – is the inconsistency we’ve seen on the defensive end.
You can hold SMU to 54 three days before the Mustangs drop 117 on Miami, hold Boston College to 56 four days before the Eagles score 96 at UNC – but then also get dinged for 80+ four times, equaling the number of times a UVA team had given up 80 or more in a game over the past six seasons combined.
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Interim UVA coach Ron Sanchez was asked about this during his weekly Zoom with the ACC media on Monday, and his answers go a long way to letting the rest of us in on why Tony Bennett Basketball doesn’t work in the NIL/transfer portal era.
“I do believe that the turnover in rosters impacts, you know, how well you defend,” said Sanchez, noting that his rotation this year has six guys new to the Virginia Pack Line – transfers Elijah Saunders, Dai Dai Ames and TJ Power, and freshmen Jacob Cofie, Anthony Robinson and Ishan Sharma.
“Putting on the Virginia uniform does not make you a good defender, you know. It is the practice, the drills, the emphasis, the teaching, you know, the time that’s invested into that,” Sanchez said.
It’s the time invested – to learn, for instance, how to defend a high pick-and-roll, with the big hard hedging, creating, with the point guard, a double-team on the ball, and the other three guys on the back end keeping watch on the big setting the screen diving toward the rim.
The defenders behind the hard hedge need to be in position to take the dive away and also be in position to defend the perimeter, to close out on a pass to the corner that could lead to an attempt from three.
There’s the post-to-post double, which has UVA doubling the post with a second post defender – most teams use a guard from the other direction to double the post – which forces the guard on the back end to take away the dive while also positioning to defend the backside shooter at the three-point line.
On-ball defenders funnel the ball to the Pack, not to the baseline, as is customary in other defensive approaches.
It’s not simple man-to-man defense, is what I’m getting at.
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“The defense is connected, it’s five guys, they got to, they got to be completely connected, you know, one guy screws up his coverage, and all of a sudden, the possession breaks down,” Sanchez said.
And it takes time, and practice reps – and game reps – to get to the point of knowing instinctively where you’re supposed to be, because everything you’re doing is so different than the way you’ve done it before.
Bennett’s best teams had guys who had been together for two or three years, and got to a point where the Pack Line was instinctual.
You’re just not going to get the level of play that we saw in the Malcolm Brogdon-Anthony Gill years, the De’Andre Hunter-Ty Jerome-Kyle Guy years, from guys who have been together for a few months.
The reality of the NIL/transfer portal era is, rosters are going to overhaul from year to year.
“I think that’s the biggest challenge of the Pack is, you know, you got to teach it from Day 1,” Sanchez said. “It’s nice when you already have a foundation in it, so maybe the, you know, part of the recruitment, you know, teams that want to play the Pack should, you know, recruit guys that have played in the Pack system, so that maybe they have a foundation in it already, so you’re not starting from, you know, Pack 101, as I like to say.”