The immediate impact of having Kyle Guy back on Grounds as a special assistant to UVA Basketball coach Tony Bennett will be most obvious in the development of junior guard Isaac McKneely.
Talking this over the other evening with resident #TeamAFP UVA Athletics whisperer Scott German at Crozet Pizza, I kept saying that I think Guy will “fix McKneely,” which even I had to acknowledge, as the guy saying it, didn’t sound right, given that McKneely was a double-digit scorer last season, and had good counting numbers all around.
When you dive inside the numbers, though, you see where the work needs to be done.
The most glaring number that stands out: eight.
That’s how many makes at the rim we saw from McKneely last season – he was 8-of-31 on layups, and, no, he didn’t have a dunk attempt.
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Guy, when he was at Virginia, wasn’t what you’d call a dribble-penetrating machine, but tracking his numbers, he evolved by adding something of an element of surprise in terms of driving the lane every so often to his game.
As a freshman, per Synergy Sports data, Guy was 10-of-29 (34.5 percent) on shots at the rim, all layups; by his junior season, in 2018-2019, Guy was a decently respectable 45-of-76 (59.2 percent), and three of the makes were dunks.
The ability to put the ball on the floor makes a shooter like a Guy or a McKneely that much more dangerous coming off the screens that are the backbone of Bennett’s offense.
Where this comes into play in terms of the evolution of McKneely’s game is, iMac actually had better numbers on catch-and-shoots (84-of-176, 47.7 percent last season) than Guy did in his breakout junior season in 2018-2019 (115-of-274, 42.0 percent).
I’d like to see how much more efficient McKneely could be if defenders, in catch-and-shoot situations, had to have, in the back of their minds, the idea that he might blow by them if they decide to sell out on a hard closeout.
As it is, with McKneely being awful on the relative few attempts he makes at the rim, and not much better on dribble jumpers (30-of-97, 30.9 percent), you can treat him in the scouting report like a one-trick pony, and close out hard, and with impunity.
The advantage that McKneely should have going for him is his size – he’s listed at 6’4”, 188, three inches taller and 20-plus pounds heavier than Guy, whose NBA career never took off almost entirely because he just wasn’t big enough to be a two guard in the league.
I’d like to think that Guy, fresh off his five years of beating his head against a wall trying to make it as a pro, can help McKneely add more tricks to the really good one that he already has.
Back to my idea of “fixing” McKneely: it’s not so much a fix that’s needed, but I think Guy can help find the parts of McKneely’s game that even the kid himself doesn’t know are there.
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Chris Graham
