Notebook: UVA’s Bennett on starting Jordan Minor, Isaac McKneely’s struggles

Jordan Minor hadn’t played more than 12 minutes in a game this season going into Saturday’s matchup with Wake Forest.

Minor, who looked good in seven garbage-time minutes in last week’s 76-60 loss at NC State, scoring six points and pulling down three rebounds, got the start, and went 22 minutes, scoring nine points and grabbing five boards.

The reason for the promotion: “He’s practiced better the last couple of weeks,” coach Tony Bennett told reporters after the 66-47 Virginia loss.

“Even though at the end of the NC State game, it wasn’t close, he played in that stretch, and those are valuable minutes for guys trying to, alright, because you know, we’re obviously searching to find, you know, personnel who can give us a lift, and just his maturity and his strength allowed him, and how he’s practicing, he’s getting used to it a little more,” Bennett said.

“I thought he really played as hard as he could today, and I liked that part,” Bennett said. “You always try to find some positive things, and yeah, you know, early on, he, you know, he could hold his ground a little more. When it’s Blake (Buchanan) against those physical guys, they move him, and so I was I was happy for the effort he put forth, and he has improved, and I think, you know, again, just from a sheer mass standpoint, he did a good job.”

Buchanan, who started the State game, and had four points and four rebounds in 23 minutes, got eight minutes off the bench on Saturday, didn’t score, missing all three of his shots, and had one rebound.

McKneely struggles: ‘They made him earn’

Isaac McKneely is sixth in the country in three-point percentage, but man, he can be feast or famine.

Saturday, it was famine: iMac was 2-of-10 from the floor, 0-of-2 from three, finishing with eight points, four coming at the line.

In Virginia’s five losses, McKneely is averaging 9.6 points per game, shooting 31.1 percent (14-of-45) from the floor and 33.3 percent (6-of-18) from three.

“They’re always going to be physical and try to take away his looks, you know, make it hard on Reece (Beekman), sometimes they’re zoning off guys, that’s challenging,” Bennett said. “And you know, we look at some ball-screen stuff, some off-ball, trying to get space, and you know, again, that’s a challenge. They were physical, they, you know, they got into him, if we didn’t set a good screen or we didn’t set him up. They just guarded us tough and hard, and you know, they made him earn.”