Home UVA Basketball: ‘Hoos, down two starters, get first road win, 82-71 at Miami
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UVA Basketball: ‘Hoos, down two starters, get first road win, 82-71 at Miami

Chris Graham
uva basketball
Photo: Mike Ingalls/AFP

It bothers me, as a reporter who covers UVA Basketball for a living, that I found out, when you did, that Elijah Saunders and Andrew Rohde weren’t going to play Wednesday night at Miami.

Not sure what happened, when it happened, but both were on the sidelines – Saunders wearing a boot, Rohde in sweats, no injury obvious, though I’m seeing now that he was in a boot in a team photo posted to the interwebs on Tuesday.

(I don’t see Saunders in the photo, for what that’s worth.)

I was literally on a Zoom call with interim coach Ron Sanchez on Monday around noon, and … nothing.


ICYMI


Certainly, whatever happened, could’ve happened between then and Wednesday.

Maybe it was a holdover from the Notre Dame game on Saturday.

Maybe the guys each fell down a well trying to find one of their girlfriends’ missing dog on Sunday.

(That’s happened before. See: McGonnigal, Bruce.)

Going forward, maybe we go down the rotation on the Zooms … is Saunders good, is McKneely good, is Rohde good …

First World problems, I know.

‘Next man up’


taine murray uva basketball miami
UVA Basketball guard Taine Murray. Photo: UVA Athletics

Taine Murray filled in for Rohde, and put up a career-high 20 points – 8-of-12 FG, 4-of-6 3FG – with seven assists and a turnover in 36 minutes in the 82-71 UVA win.

A couple of things on Murray’s night: one, Murray was averaging 3.7 points per game coming in, and he’d scored exactly 20 points in his last eight games, dating back to the 70-67 win over NC State on Dec. 31.

Two, his previous career-high was 14, achieved two times – earlier this season, in the 64-62 loss to Memphis on Dec. 18, and then way, way back in his freshman season, in the 75-74 loss to Iowa on Nov. 29, 2021.


ICYMI


That’s so long ago that Ryan Dunn, now an NBA rookie, after two years at Virginia, ahead of being a first-round pick of the Phoenix Suns, was still in high school that night.

Credit to Murray, who two weeks ago was getting garbage-time minutes – seven in the loss to SMU on Jan. 15, three in the loss at Louisville on Jan. 18 – for being ready.

“It was next man up,” Sanchez said. “We try to invest a lot of time into guys that don’t get an opportunity to play a big role. We, you know, in practice, we continue, we coach them like they’re starters, you know, for this precise reason, so that when your number’s called, you don’t have to get ready, that you are ready, you know. And Taine actually showed that today.”

Also stepping up big was Blake Buchanan, the 6’11” sophomore who hasn’t started since mid-December, and gave Sanchez 33 clean minutes – just one foul! – while scoring 16 points (6-of-8 FG, 4-of-6 FT) and nine rebounds.

Isaac McKneely is a regular key contributor, but he also stepped up with two of his fellow starters out, with a season-high 26 points (9-of-17 FG, 6-of-12 3FG, 2-of-2 FT), three assists and two steals in 37 minutes.

Miami is … not good


Don’t get too excited here. Miami has now lost 20 straight ACC games, including its loss in the 2024 ACC Tournament, dating back to what we can look at as the beginning of the end of the Jim Larranaga era, the 60-38 loss at JPJ on Feb. 5, 2024, that was the scene of Larranaga’s now-infamous 27-second postgame presser.


ICYMI


Miami, coming into that one, was 15-7 overall, 6-5 in the ACC, on the heels of a Final Four run in 2023.

The loss in JPJ would be the first of 10 in a row to end the 2023-2024 season; the loss tonight drops Miami to 4-17 overall in 2024-2025, and an 0-10 mark in the ACC.

Virginia put up a season-high 82 points, shooting 54.9 percent from the field, with 11 made threes, 11 makes at the rim and 15-of-20 shooting at the free-throw line.

Why I don’t want you getting too excited about those numbers: Miami ranks 352nd nationally in adjusted defensive efficiency, per KenPom.

There are 363 teams in D1; Miami is the 12th-worst team, defensively, in the nation this year.

Playing out the string


Larranaga stepped down in December, citing, along the lines of what we heard from Tony Bennett back in October, when he quit as the coach at Virginia, exhaustion from having to coach in the new NIL/transfer portal era.


ICYMI


uva basketball ron sanchez
UVA Basketball coach Ron Sanchez. Photo: Mike Ingalls/AFP

As is the case at Virginia, where Bennett’s long-time right-hand man, Sanchez, stepped in as the interim, Larranaga’s long-time right-hand man, Bill Courtney, is the interim at Miami.

Courtney also had a run as an assistant at Virginia, on the staff of Dave Leitao, who he hooked back up with when Leitao got a second run at DePaul.

I tell you all of that to then say, Bill Courtney has been a part of bad basketball, but also, keep in mind, Virginia and Miami shared the ACC regular-season title just two years ago, with both these guys on the coaching staffs.

“Bill and I are doing the best that we can, you know, with the hands that we’ve been dealt, to honor, you know, our students, to honor our universities, to make sure that we work hard for our athletic directors and our presidents and for our fan bases,” Sanchez said after this one.

“We can’t control the emotional state of our players losing their head coaches. That’s real, you know, but I can guarantee you that Bill and his staff are working their tails off, just like our staff, you know, is working their tails off every single day,” Sanchez said.

Video: UVA Basketball gets road W


Chris Graham

Chris Graham

Chris Graham, the king of "fringe media," a zero-time Virginia Sportswriter of the Year, and a member of zero Halls of Fame, is the founder and editor of Augusta Free Press. A 1994 alum of the University of Virginia, Chris is the author and co-author of seven books, including Poverty of Imagination, a memoir published in 2019. For his commentaries on news, sports and politics, go to his YouTube page, or subscribe to his Street Knowledge podcast. Email Chris at [email protected].