You’re not going to win a lot of games when the four guys that you play in the post get a total of nine rebounds, which is what we saw Monday night from UVA Basketball.
Third-ranked Duke somehow only won by 18 with a 41-21 advantage on the boards.
“They really just made a statement on the glass. So many second-chance points. That was the factor,” interim coach Ron Sanchez said after the 80-62 loss.
ICYMI
At one point in the first half, Duke had a 12-1 rebounding advantage. It was 24-8 at halftime, and the Blue Devils had more offensive rebounds (eight) than Virginia had defensive rebounds (seven) in the first 20 minutes.
The 14-point halftime lead was almost entirely second-chance points, which, credit to Duke, the better, more talented team – offensive rebounds and second-chance points, that’s effort.
“We knew we had some disadvantages on the on the glass, but we thought we would do a much better job than we did. That was unacceptable, you know, our interior players have to do a much better job rebounding the basketball,” Sanchez said.
Solid backcourt play
I don’t want to overstate what I’m about to say, because this Duke team (23-3, 15-1 ACC) has the profile of a top national-title contender – KenPom has them second on offense, fourth on defense.
That said, I thought the Virginia backcourt was just as good as their counterparts on the other side last night, which is saying something, because Duke freshmen Kon Knueppel (17 points, 5-of-12 FG, 3-of-6 3FG, 4-of-4 FT) and Isaiah Evans (17 points, 6-of-7 FG, 5-of-6 3FG) are projected 2025 NBA Draft picks.
The UVA kids weren’t on the radar of the bevy of NBA scouts in attendance for this one – but Andrew Rohde (15 points, 5-of-10 FG, 2-of-4 3FG, 3-of-4 FT, five rebounds, five assists), Dai Dai Ames (15 points, 6-of-12 FG, 1-of-4 3FG, 2-of-3 FT, three assists) and Isaac McKneely (14 points, 4-of-9 FG, 4-of-7 3FG, 2-of-2 FT) more than held their own.
“I could not have asked more from Andrew, from Dai Dai or from iMac. I think those three guys showed up, and they, you know, they met the challenge, you know, they played well,” Sanchez said.
The weakness: Up front
The frontcourt guys, though, man.
Jacob Cofie, the guy that we talked about in the preseason as being a surefire future NBA guy, put up a double-bagel – no points, no rebounds, in 17 minutes, and on top of the stunning lack of counting numbers, he was constantly eaten alive in one-on-one matchups with Duke freshman Cooper Flagg, the projected #1 overall pick in this June’s NBA Draft.
Duke coach Jon Scheyer kept running sets in the second half that got Flagg the ball with space to operate against Cofie, and our freshman offered no resistance.
Flagg’s counting numbers for the night: 17 points, 14 rebounds, 8-of-16 shooting, 0-of-3 from three.
Flagg messed around and got a double-double, and I didn’t think he looked particularly all that good tonight – but he was head and shoulders better than Cofie.
Getting back to the UVA bigs: Blake Buchanan, the former four-star prep recruit, had two points and three boards in 21 minutes.
This time last year, I was telling anybody who would listen that Buchanan just needed to hit the weight room, and once he did, and got stronger, both up top and down below, he would start to look like the four-star 6’11” guy that we’d been advertised.
A year later, he’s still not strong enough to play night in, night out in the ACC.
Elijah Saunders, the team’s second-leading scorer, finished with seven points – which was deceptive; he didn’t get on the scoreboard until he hit a three with 9:54 left, with UVA down 25 at the time – and three rebounds in 23 minutes.
Saunders, unfortunately, has a tendency to put up numbers when it doesn’t matter.
Bright spot
Redshirt freshman Anthony Robinson also had seven points and three boards in 19 minutes, and a manly block on a dunk attempt by Flagg.
In his last five, the 6’10” Robinson is averaging 8.6 points and 4.2 rebounds in 16.8 minutes per game.
Maybe more minutes for him going forward?
“Anthony’s improving, so his energizing plays in the second half, we needed more of that,” said Sanchez, who gave Robinson 11 minutes in the second half.
Cofie got 10, and did literally nothing in them.
“Anthony’s shortcoming right now is that he’s young, and you can’t speed up Mother Nature, you know. He’s learning, you know, to be an impactful defender. We had a couple of miscommunications when he was on the floor. That’s the time the game is a little too fast for him, but he is improving. He’s getting better, and it’s a great opportunity for him today,” Sanchez said.
Might just be me, but I’d take a miscommunication or two over a guy getting eaten alive and otherwise giving you nothing.
So, what we learned
I’ve been writing of late how I want to see this team stay together and get a chance to run it back next year, but after the measuring stick that you get playing a team that I think can cut down nets in April, we see the holes that will need to be addressed.
It’s all in the frontcourt.
Buchanan is Jekyll and Hyde, and more often, Hyde than Jekyll.
Cofie is too soft on offense, too willing to settle for contested mid-range jumpers.
Going back 10 games now, he’s averaging 5.3 points and 3.8 rebounds in 19.8 minutes per game, on 42.0 percent shooting (1-of-7 3FG).
And then, on D, ugh.
Saunders: also soft on offense – he’s shooting 50.4 percent in the paint, 58.7 percent at the rim, both registering in the bottom third of all players nationally, not much of a presence on defense.
Assuming Sanchez is retained, and don’t shoot the messenger, but there is momentum in that direction behind the scenes, the frontcourt needs immediate attention.
I’m not saying you necessarily cut bait on any of those guys, but you’ll have some open scholarships to play with – Taine Murray is a senior, Christian Bliss seems headed out the door, I can’t imagine TJ Power being around.
Keep the backcourt core of McKneely, Rohde and Ames together, get Elijah Gertrude back and healthy, plus Ishan Sharma, who has shown flashes of brilliance, and you’re set rotation-wise at the three guard spots.
I build my frontcourt around Robinson, plus whoever from among Buchanan, Cofie and Saunders decides to step up, and I use my three open schollies on bringing guys in who can raise the level of play among the bigs.
Getting ahead of myself
Still five regular-season games left for this Virginia team (13-13, 6-9 ACC), with road games at UNC and Wake and a home game with Clemson the next three.
Gotta put this one in the rear view and get back out there and win some down the stretch.
“The power of the tongue is what you need in this space,” Sanchez said after the loss. “I got to make sure that I deliver the right message to the guys, which is, you know, we are playing good basketball. Now we did not play our best basketball tonight, but that does not take away from the good basketball that we are playing. We have to understand that. We have to recognize the things that we did well, celebrate those, identify the things that we did poorly, attack those immediately, so we can prepare for the next opponent coming up and then move forward.”
The two guys that the media-relations folks sent out to talk with reporters after the game, McKneely and Rohde, made it seem like the team is ready to rally around that message.
“I think, yeah, we’re just playing free,” McKneely said. “Coach Sanchez is letting us play a little bit, you know, the bigs are doing a great job screening, you know, we’ve been making shots for the most part recently, but you know, we got to find ways to get stops. Because, you know, I think we scored enough points to win the game. We just, you know, we just got to find a way to get stops.”
“I mean, kind of like Coach says at every game, you know, leave this one here, and we’re gonna go prepare for the next one the same way that we prepare for all our games,” Rohde said. “So, just kind of, you know, keeping that energy flowing about us, we can’t hang our heads. We can’t do anything about what happened tonight, besides, you know, look back at the film and try to get better in certain aspects.”
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Chris Graham
