The Tony Bennett Basketball philosophy is grounded in defensive rebounding, and Bennett’s best UVA Basketball teams were among the best nationally in cleaning the defensive boards.
This year’s interim edition of Virginia Basketball, not so much.
“We should be a much better rebounding team that we are right now,” interim head coach Ron Sanchez said after his team’s 70-50 loss to Louisville, which had 14 offensive rebounds in the victory.
ICYMI
Virginia had 19 defensive rebounds, which gets us, doing some quick math, to a defensive rebounding percentage of 57.6 percent.
The season number of 70.8 percent ranks 154th nationally, so, just a tad bit better than the average team.
But in games with the CBB Power 5, we’re looking at a 62.7 percent defensive rebounding rate, which would rank in the Bottom 15 nationally.
So, what’s going on here?
“Rebounding is one of those things, yes, you know, it’s probably a combination of everything that you just asked, but there is a level of tenacity that you have to have in order to want to be, you know, a rebounder, you know. I think that, you know, experience, size, age, athleticism, all that definitely plays a role in it,” Sanchez said.
For reference, Bennett had nine straight teams rank in the Top 50 nationally in defensive rebounding rate, from 2013-2021, and the 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2020 and 2021 teams ranked in the Top 20.
The way Tony Bennett Basketball works: you play good team D for 30 seconds, force misses, get rebounds, and strangle the opponent on the offensive end by limiting second-chance points.
The tradeoff: Tony Bennett Basketball involves not sending extra guys to the offensive boards, to have guys back to prevent transition opportunities leading to fast-break buckets.
Only two of Bennett’s teams – in 2014 and 2015 – ranked in the Top 100 nationally in offensive rebounding percentage.
This year’s group is the worst of both worlds – ranking in the middle of the pack on the defensive boards, and 335th on the offensive glass (23.0 percent).
The philosophy to Tony Bennett Basketball, now, fully explained: don’t give up easy baskets, either from offensive rebounds or fast breaks, and make teams beat you by playing better halfcourt offense.
You have to be able to clean up the defensive boards to make it work.
“We work on it every day in practice, so we’re definitely capable of it,” said Isaac McKneely, a 6’4” shooting guard who is third on the team in defensive rebounds per game (with 3.6; the leaders: 6’8” forward Jacob Cofie: 3.9, 6’9” forward Elijah Saunders: 3.8).
“A lot of it’s just effort, you know, boxing out and getting rebounds, not a talent thing, it’s just effort. Who wants it more?” McKneely told reporters after the Louisville game, in which he had 13 points and three rebounds, all on the defensive end.
“They wanted it more than us tonight. So, you know, credit’s to them for that. But yeah, we got to fix that for the rest of the season going forward,” McKneely said.
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Chris Graham
