Virginia guard Isaac McKneely is third in the nation in three-point percentage, but going into Wednesday’s game with Louisville, the 6’4” sophomore had shot a cool 5-of-20 (25 percent) from long-range.
He missed his first couple of jumpers in the 77-53 win, but got a three to go at the 9:37 mark of the first half, and it was like the lid came off.
iMac finished the night with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting, 4-of-7 from three, and had a scintillating two-minute second-half stretch where he hit a pair of pull-up jumpers and a three to cap things off.
You can hope the good-shooting night will be a springboard for McKneely after that recent rough stretch.
“It definitely does, it helps the confidence, for sure,” McKneely told reporters after the Louisville game. “You know, when you have a few games like that where you’re not shooting it too well, like, a game like this, where you bounce back and shoot it well, definitely helps for the confidence. So, moving forward, I think that’ll help, for sure.”
McKneely averaged a modest 6.7 points per game as a freshman last season, getting 21.5 minutes per game off the bench on the veteran-laden 2022-2023 roster.
Now firmly established as the starting two guard, McKneely is putting up 11.4 points in 29.1 minutes per game, and shooting 48.6 percent from three – a marked improvement from the solid 39.2 percent mark that he’d had as a freshman.
The issue for McKneely in the four-game stretch were the shots weren’t falling was the adjustments being made by opposing coaches to try to take him out of his comfort zone – switching on screens, emphasizing closeouts when he does get a sliver of light.
The two pull-up jumpers that he made in the closing stretch Wednesday night are a big part of what McKneely is trying to do to adjust to the adjustments.
“You know, coming into the season, I wanted to showcase that I’m not just a shooter, but also, you know, teams are starting to take notice, you know, I want to shoot the three, of course, so they’re starting to get up in me and close out really hard,” McKneely said. “So, I think that creates opportunities for me, you know, to use my shot fake or use my pull-up, like you said, so just trying to showcase other areas of my game and show I’m not just a shooter.”
The numbers bear out that McKneely is going more to pull-up jumpers than he did last year. Data from Synergy Sports had McKneely shooting a total of 24 short- and mid-range jumpers in his freshman season; he’s already put up 29 short- and mid-range jumpshots through 14 games this season.
Where he needs to improve: making more of those shots.
The Synergy numbers have iMac connecting on just nine of those 29 jumpers (31.0 percent).
One other area that needs work: getting to, and finishing at, the rim.
Per Synergy, McKneely is 2-of-9 on shots at the rim this season.
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Chris Graham
