If this UVA Basketball team doesn’t get a chance to run it back next year, and it’s looking that way, it’ll be because the mix of veterans and newcomers weren’t able to figure out the Pack Line defense.
“The area that I am most disappointed in, you know, it’s kind of in our defense, not being able to get a stop when we need one,” said the interim coach, Ron Sanchez, on his weekly Zoom with the beat writers on Monday.
Sanchez, probably to his detriment, in retrospect, has stuck to the defensive approach inherited from his predecessor, and long-time boss, Tony Bennett, though the personnel with this year’s roster is missing key elements to make it work.
The most glaring issue: there’s no rangy, big, Swiss army knife stopper along the lines of a Ryan Dunn or De’Andre Hunter, who can guard from 1-4, point guards to stretch fours.
Alright, yeah, Ryan Dunns and De’Andre Hunters don’t grow on trees, but to be blunt, there’s nobody even close to their level defensively on the roster this year.
Another issue: the starting backcourt of Andrew Rohde, Isaac McKneely and Dai Dai Ames is plus on offense, but none of those guys are going to be confused with a Reece Beekman or a Kihei Clark.
And then another: there’s not been consistent rim protection behind them, though the emergence of late of redshirt freshman Anthony Robinson, who is averaging a team-best 2.7 blocks per 40 minutes, would have been better if Robinson had emerged sooner.
Bennett, back when he was still the coach, ahead of stepping down in October, and Sanchez, since he took over, have emphasized that this year’s roster was constructed on a two-year development plan, with an eye toward getting a young group – the rotation has just one senior, reserve guard Taine Murray – reps and game action with an eye toward breaking out next season.
My read on where things stand, with two weeks to go in the 2024-2025 regular season, is that Sanchez – or whoever the new full-time head coach is come April 1, give or take a few days one direction or another – will need to prioritize defense and improved post play via the NIL/transfer portal route.
ICYMI
In the here and now, Virginia (13-14, 6-9 ACC) has four regular-season games left, and a modest goal to get above .500 heading into the ACC Tournament, which isn’t going to be easy – the schedulemakers have the ‘Hoos on the road at Wake Forest on Wednesday, at home against Clemson this weekend, before finishing up next week with Florida State at home, and a road game at Syracuse.
The key to going 3-1 against that schedule is going to be getting stops out of a group that has been surrendering a ghastly 1.112 points per possession in its last eight games, per BartTorvik, ranking 255th in D1 in that span.
“Trying to identify the reasons why, and it’s kind of shifted from game to game, and a lot of it does come down to experience and really understanding some of these guys, they feel like, oh, man, I can score, you know, we hit a three and give up a three. You know, the concept of getting a stop and a score, stop and a score, still hasn’t really surrounded the group,” Sanchez said.
To that point: the offense has averaged 1.201 points per possession over its last eight, which BartTorvik ranks 29th nationally.
That level of offensive output for a Virginia team should never have you going 4-4 in an eight-game stretch.
Sanchez and the staff have tried a little bit of everything, even using some zone on some defensive possessions, just to change things up.
Of late, Sanchez has had his guards and bigs switching on high screens, not so much because the hard hedges by the bigs weren’t working, but because of what was happening behind the ball.
“If you’re impacting a screen, there are a lot of things behind that, you know. I actually would tell you that the other three defenders are more important than the two guys in the ball screen, and what they do and how they communicate, and their positioning and placing, you know, and we’re playing a lot of guys that don’t have that experience,” Sanchez said.
“The defense part, it is a shared experience, you know, man, the mental and physical toughness that it takes to get a stop, you know, when it’s demanded and needed,” Sanchez said. “Defense in the Pack, you know, one person out of position ruins the possession, you know, one person not doing the right thing kind of ruins the possession. Because it’s not an individual thing, it’s a five-man collective, you know, type of defense.”
Sanchez pledged on the Monday Zoom to keep working on a defensive fix, but I think the problem isn’t the x’s and o’s, but rather, the Jimmies and Joes.
Defense will need to be a priority for Sanchez, or whoever has the big whistle, as soon as the portal opens back up in the spring.
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Chris Graham
