Virginia, improbably, given its struggles this season, owns the nation’s longest winning streak, at 20 games.
If only the Cavaliers could play ‘em all in JPJ, right?
UVA (12-5, 3-3 ACC) took the lead for good on the first of back-to-back Jake Groves threes, at the 11:19 mark.
Virginia Tech (10-7, 2-4 ACC) hung around, despite being down by double digits for a combined 9:03 of game time.
I’m not counting whatever that was as one of my observations, which follow.
Jordan Minor is a grown-ass man
Virginia was in serious need of the Jordan Minor who played 26 minutes and had 16 points and five boards, and utterly punked Tech big man Lynn Kidd, from the opening tip of the season a couple of months ago.
Minor, listed at 6’8”, 242, not only put up the big counting numbers, but he held the 6’10” Kidd, who came in averaging 14.8 points and 7.1 rebounds, to two points and two boards in 16 ineffective minutes.
That Minor hadn’t played more than 12 minutes in a game until this past weekend is … it is what it is.
What we were led to believe, whispers around the periphery being the currency when it comes to what’s going on with UVA basketball, unless you’re an NIL guy, and then they tell you everything, is that Minor was having trouble learning the Pack-Line, because he’d played zone for four years at Merrimack, where he was a double-digit scorer the past three years.
Ahem, in his last two games, over 48 minutes, he’s allowed two points on the defensive end, on 1-of-3 shooting.
So, we’re to believe that Minor just in the past week picked up what he needed to know about playing the Pack Line, and did so in practice, not in games, because he wasn’t getting any meaningful live reps in games.
OK.
The Dante Harris factor
So, we got 26 minutes from Jordan Minor, who’d barely played until a few days ago, and also got 17 minutes off the bench from Dante Harris, the Georgetown transfer, who had been out since the Thanksgiving break with a high ankle sprain.
Harris hadn’t been doing much – 3.5 points, 1.3 assists per game in his six runs before the injury – but the flashes made you think he had more to give.
On Wednesday, his counting numbers were nice – five points, five assists, a block and a steal.
He did have some issues trying to D up on Sean Pedulla – Synergy Sports had him giving up nine points on 3-of-9 shooting – but he was better as the game played on.
His play on both ends was solid, and he’s only going to get better with more run, and better health.
Efficient offense at home
Factoring out the guarantee games, because, obviously, Virginia, at home, has averaged 1.159 points per possession in its home wins over Texas A&M, Syracuse, Louisville and now Virginia Tech.
That would rank 30th nationally, per KenPom, if it was a full-season number.
The full-season number for Virginia: 1.061 points per possession.
That ranks 171st nationally.
Nice D, for the first time in a while, from RD
Ryan Dunn, a projected 2024 NBA first-round pick, based entirely on his defense, hadn’t been as good as advertised on that side of the court of late, giving up 10 points on defense in the 66-47 loss at Wake Forest on Saturday, and nine in the 76-60 loss at NC State on Jan. 3.
Dunn, on Wednesday night, was back to being the Ryan Dunn we’ve known and loved, allowing three points on 1-of-6 shooting in 26 minutes on the defensive end.
He’s still quite the enigma on the offensive end: he had six points on 3-of-4 shooting, two of the makes lob-pass dunks.
One would think that a projected first-round pick would have, really, anything to offer, other than finishing lobs, on the offensive end.
And one would not be wrong to think that.
Four turnovers?
The sportswriter sitting next to me on press row (his name rhymes with Scott German) said after one of Reece Beekman’s four turnovers, He’s not playing in the NBA.
How fickle we can be.
But, yeah, four turnovers, that’s ugly.
Tonight was Beekman’s fourth game with four or more TOs; he had seven of those games in his career coming into this season.
Two of the TOs tonight led to Tech breakouts and easy buckets.
On the other side, Beekman had 16 points, four rebounds, four assists, four steals.
But also, four turnovers.
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Chris Graham
