I’ve been writing for two years that, if only Reece Beekman could find a jumper, he’d be among the elite players in the ACC.
Don’t want to jinx him here, but I think he’s found his jumper.
Beekman, through the first 10 games this season, was a ghastly 5-of-34 (14.7%) on two- and three-point jumpers.
He was 3-of-6 on jumpers on his way to 19 points on 8-of-11 shooting in Virginia’s 66-61 win at Pitt Wednesday night.
The three makes were all from three.
In his last six games, Beeks is shooting a cool 44.4 percent (8-of-18) from three.
What that does is prevents opponents from sagging off him to take away his rim runs.
Which you saw in big numbers Wednesday night: Beekman was 5-of-5 at the rim.
On the season, Beekman is 46-of-76 (60.5%) at the rim, second on the team in makes and attempts to 6’7” power forward Jayden Gardner (50-of-87, 57.5%).
When help comes to try to cut Beekman off from getting to the rim, that gets a teammate open, as it did Wednesday night.
Beekman finished with eight assists.
He’s averaging 5.0 assists per game in his last seven, with a tidy 35:10 assist:turnover ratio.
All this, and the guy was already an elite defender – he leads the ACC in steals, forces turnovers on 24 percent of opponent possessions, and holds opponents to 30.4 percent shooting.
The Reece Beekman who is averaging 13.2 points on 55.7 percent shooting in his last seven games, and plays lights-out defense, is the best two-way player in the ACC.
Story by Chris Graham
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