Looking at UConn’s lineup, top to bottom, the starters go 6’4″, 6’5″, 6’8″, 7’2″, and 6’6″. They all score, rebound, and pass. And 1-4 can shoot the three.
This is the model for UVA. When everyone is an offensive threat, you have to guard everyone.
Alan
Having a 7’2″ kid who can score and isn’t a liability on defense is an outlier (for both of those teams that played last night), but having four guys who can shoot the three and defend the perimeter is a must to be able to succeed in today’s college game.
Virginia’s best team, the one that won the national title in 2019, had five guys who could defend on switches (when Mamadi Diakite took over the starter at center in the NCAA Tournament).
The versatility on D of both De’Andre Hunter and Braxton Key was next-level, and having Dre, Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy able to shoot the three was why that team was so efficient on offense.
To me, the issue for Tony Bennett isn’t that he hasn’t been getting better overall recruits since the natty, because he has, according to the rankings.
The issue is, it’s like, the pieces don’t fit, somehow.
To his credit, he revamped the offense in the post-COVID year, 2020-2021, because his best shooters were all 6’8” or bigger – Sam Hauser, Trey Murphy III and Jay Huff.
That team had issues on defense, though – ranking a decent 36th nationally in KenPom, but you might remember, they got exposed in some of their losses that year (Gonzaga, in particular, scoring 98 points in a 69-possession game in December).
The 2019-2020, 2021-2022 and 2023-2024 groups have all been lacking in good perimeter and midrange shooters, with the 2019-2020 and 2023-2024 groups finishing 200+ in offensive efficiency in KenPom as a result.
So, either you had a good offensive team that couldn’t play the Pack Line D, or you had good defensive teams that couldn’t run Bennett’s slow-tempo version of the mover/blocker-sides offense.
There’s been plenty of four-star and transfer-portal talent on the rosters over the past five years, but they haven’t meshed to the point of being anywhere near comparable to Bennett’s good teams of the 2013-2019 era, which had less in the way of recruiting-star talent, but used guys that were largely overlooked by the big boys to their full potential.
Looking ahead to next season, Bennett has some dudes – Isaac McKneely would be a 15- to 17-point-a-game scorer practically anywhere else in the Top 25; I can see Elijah Gertrude being a big-time point guard for a top-division up-tempo team like a North Carolina or an Alabama; Blake Buchanan needs to hit the weight room, put on a few good pounds, and have somebody work with him on being strong in the lane and around the basket, and he can be a plus college-level big; and since I’m assuming that Ryan Dunn is coming back, all he needs is to develop a passable jump shot, and he’s a lottery pick.
The question isn’t talent; it’s, is it used as close to full potential as possible?
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Chris Graham
