Follow-up: Tony Bennett talks up Andrew Rhode, likes his ‘feel for the game’

The second question in Virginia hoops coach Tony Bennett’s weekly teleconference on Monday was about Andrew Rohde, the second-year combo guard getting 29.1 minutes per game despite his low scoring numbers, deficiencies on defense and a key metric showing him to be the least productive guy in Bennett’s lineup by an order of magnitude.

Probably just a coincidence that I’d detailed all of that about Rohde and his playing time in a column on Sunday.

I’m getting ahead of myself.

The question, from the Times-Dispatch’s Mike Barber:

“Andrew Rohde is giving you, not a ton of scoring, not a ton of three-point shooting, but he’s been really good in assist-to-turnover. What do you like about his game? What’s kind of kept him in your lineup, your rotation, and where is he at defensively?”

That, we could say, is the kinder, gentler way of asking about what it I devoted 1,000 words to writing with bright red ink yesterday.

Here was Bennett’s answer:

“I thought he played well against Georgia Tech, as did a number of guys,” Bennett started his answer.

Sorry, I already need to interject: Rohde had five points on 2-of-6 shooting and four assists in the 75-66 win, and on defense, according to numbers from Synergy Sports, he gave up 10 points on 4-of-11 shooting.

Over his last six games, all in ACC play, Rohde is averaging 4.3 points and 2.3 assists, on 11-of-40 (27.5 percent) shooting from the floor overall, and 4-of-22 (18.2 percent) shooting from three.

In that same stretch, Rohde has given up double-digits on defense in three of the six, for an average of 9.7 points per game, on 22-of-52 (42.3) percent shooting from the floor overall, and 63.6 percent (14-of-22) shooting on mid-range jumpers and shots at the rim.

Back to Bennett:

“His, it’s what I said when we recruited him, you can see that his feel for the game,” Bennett said. “His ability to pass and see, move without the ball, move, even his smarts defensively, as he’s getting better at positioning and you know, always for all of us, it’s a job to keep guys at this level in front of you one-on-one.

“But he really is, when he’s distributing and opportunistic, you know, he hit a three, and looking to be a distributor (inaudible), but using his feel, he’s one of the better feel guys we have with decent size,” Bennett said. “So, I think he’s, you know, like all the guys, continue to improve, that are in their first year in our program, at understanding you know, what it takes, what this level is and how we can be effective.”

So, Tony likes Rohde’s feel for the game, is what we get there, as to why he gets the 29.1 minutes per game.

The numbers – both the counting numbers and the advanced metrics – suggest that Rohde isn’t doing all that much with his 29.1 minutes per game, and that it might make sense to at least think about giving some of those minutes to other guys from among the group of Dante Harris, Elijah Gertrude and Taine Murray.

I get it; it’s not my job to make those calls.

It is my job to dive into the numbers and raise issues that seem like are in need of being addressed.

I’m also not there with the kids watching practice every day, or to be accurate, any day; all I get, same as you, is what we see in games and can glean from the plethora of numbers that we get from the various stats services.

I’m glad Mike Barber asked the question and got Tony on the record.

It says a lot that reporters asking hard questions apparently feel the need to tone things down at the risk of offending.

We don’t get much access as it is; take what you can get, right?

Anyway, I’m looking forward to how Barber frames his story on Rohde.

His job’s a lot more reliant on access than mine, which is to say, mine’s not reliant on access really at all.