We knew, as a promising UVA Basketball season fizzled out down the stretch last year, with a string of games in which the ‘Hoos didn’t get out of the 40s, that Tony Bennett Basketball needed to be a thing of the past.
That Tony Bennett himself came to that same conclusion, announcing his retirement three weeks before the season opener, was, initially, a shock.
But now that we’re seeing the team that Bennett left in the hands of his long-time right-hand man, Ron Sanchez, stumble again, this time in a 63-51 loss at SMU on Saturday, we’re seeing what he saw ahead of riding off into the sunset, and what I assume Jalen Warley, a spring transfer who decided, after Bennett stepped down, to go back to the transfer portal rather than be a part of this, also saw.
This one might have reached a new low. Isaac McKneely made a three with 10:19 to go to put Virginia up 45-38, capping a personal 7-0 run – McKneely had converted a four-point play on UVA’s previous trip down the court.
SMU coach Andy Enfield called a timeout, drew up a play that led to an open three, and presumably pushed a button enabling a force field to prevent the ball from going in the Virginia basket the rest of the way.
In the final 10:19, after the Enfield timeout, Virginia was 0-of-9 from the floor with six turnovers, getting its final six points at the free throw line.
The 63-51 final score was a bit deceiving – SMU was 7-of-8 at the line in the final 1:03, as UVA fouled to try to work the clock.
The Virginia defense was better than it has been, holding the Mustangs, who came in averaging 88.3 points per game, to 42.1 percent shooting overall, and 6-of-24 shooting from three.
It’s just that, you’re not going to win a lot of games with 51 points, and only six in the final 10 minutes, and nothing from the field.
Thin margin of error
Even with Dai Dai Ames on the floor, this team can struggle on the offensive end, but the Kansas State transfer does give the team another gear when he’s running the point.
Ames would only log seven minutes today, before leaving with 10:39 to go with what Sanchez described after the game as a sprained ankle.
For roughly the next 20 minutes, the ‘Hoos made do with what they had – shooting 7-of-12 from three, including the back-to-back makes by McKneely, to go up 45-38 with 10:19 left.
What was missing, even when things were going relatively well, was anything in the paint.
UVA had a dunk and two driving layups in the opening 3:33 in Saturday’s contest, but only made two shots at the rim the rest of the way, settling way, way too often for midrange jumpers, the lowest-value shot in the game, and connecting on just 3-of-21 in the midrange.
The Cavaliers were a respectable 8-of-19 (42.1 percent) from three as a team, but most of that was McKneely, who finished with 17 points on 5-of-12 shooting, 4-of-8 from three.
Down the stretch last year, the UVA offense was Reece Beekman, now averaging 18.0 points and 7.6 assists a game in the G League, and Isaac McKneely.
The work in the offseason – tweaks to the x’s and o’s, emphasis in the transfer portal in finding shooters – was supposed to correct for that.
The work on the x’s and o’s didn’t add any variety to the offense, which still operates off Bennett’s mover/blocker offense, with the new wrinkle being, now the guards set screens for the bigs, in addition to the bigs setting screens for the guards.
Yeah, that ain’t much, in terms of difference.
The shooters recruited from the portal aren’t working out.
Former five-star prep recruit TJ Power, who played a year at Duke, is averaging 2.2 points per game, and shooting 25.9 percent from the floor.
Power made a three on his first shot from the field on Saturday, but his last shot, a wide-open look from behind the arc, was an airball, short and wide left.
Elijah Saunders, a 6’8” bruiser who can bang down low and knock down shots from the perimeter, is feast-or-famine – he had 19 points (6-of-12 FG, 3-of-5 3FG) in the 87-69 loss at #13 Florida on Wednesday, but was 0-of-6 from the floor on Saturday, finishing with three points and three boards in 25 foul-plagued minutes.
Is a fix in the works?
I listened to Sanchez’s postgame presser, and outside of learning that Ames was forced out with the sprained ankle, and that redshirt freshman point guard Christian Bliss is “day-to-day” in terms of making his college debut, there wasn’t much there.
We keep hearing from Sanchez that it’s a young team, that they’re all still getting used to playing with each other, and playing within the UVA system, but we’re nine games in now, and it’s not like Virginia is the only team in the country with a lot of new guys – it’s the transfer portal era; everybody has a lot of new guys.
It’s the system, which, even when it was working, took time and lots of game reps to work at its best.
Bennett’s best teams were guys with juniors and seniors who played his offense and his Pack Line defense together for three or four years, and let’s be blunt here – he had better players, guys like Malcolm Brogdon, Joe Harris, Justin Anderson, Anthony Gill, De’Andre Hunter, Ty Jerome, Kyle Guy, than he left behind for Ron Sanchez.
On this current roster, only Isaac McKneely is a rotation guy on the Brogdon teams, or on the Hunter-Jerome-Guy teams.
Sanchez is left with a lot of young guys, a roster with a lot of transfers and first-years who need to grow up fast, a shortage of athleticism.
I wrote before the season that the UVA job was Sanchez’s if he were to get the team into the NCAA Tournament.
No way that’s happening now.
And no offense to Ron Sanchez, but maybe it’s time for UVA Athletics to put a bow on the Tony Bennett era, which now seems pretty clearly to have run its course, and start anew.
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Chris Graham
