Ron Sanchez, in his first noticeable wrinkle as the new UVA Basketball coach, started the season with a two-guard lineup as the foundation, departing from Tony Bennett’s preferred three-guard grouping, to mixed results.
Since the return from the Bahamas, which saw the Cavaliers going 0-2, with back-to-back 20-plus-point losses, Sanchez has gone back to the way Bennett would have played things, with a three-guard lineup.
The result: back-to-back games of nice offensive productivity.
“I think that what we are right now is probably what we’re settling into,” said Sanchez, after the 67-41 win over Holy Cross on Friday night, in which Virginia scored those 67 points on 57 possessions, for a 1.175 points-per-possession line item there.
In Tuesday’s 74-65 win over Manhattan, those 74 points came on 59 possessions, so, 1.254 points per possession.
The ‘Hoos had been putting up 0.951 points per possession through the season’s first five games.
A couple of key numbers to point out since the switch: turnovers are down since going back to three-guard (7.0 per game over the past two; 13.8 per game in the first five games), and the guards are getting more paint touches, for themselves and for the bigs.
The ‘Hoos had been averaging 12.0 shots at the rim in the opening five games with the bigger lineup; in the past two, the offense is averaging 16.0 shots at the rim.
That number still needs to go up, but it’s moving in the right direction.
“Obviously, when you have guys like Dai Dai and iMac, playing with them, it makes the game a lot easier, because you can rely on them,” said guard Andrew Rohde, who averaged 13.5 points on 11-of-17 shooting (3-of-6 from three) last week after being reinserted into the starting lineup.
“Just us three being in there, you know, touching the paint, being aggressive, trying to make the right plays, it’s good,” Rohde said.
Isaac McKneely, who was held to four points on 1-of-6 shooting in the 64-42 loss to Tennessee on the Bahamas trip, averaged 15.5 points per game last week, on 9-of-21 shooting (6-of-13 from three).
Dai Dai Ames, who averaged 5.2 points per game as a freshman at Kansas State last season, averaged 13.0 points per game on 9-of-16 shooting (4-of-5 from three) last week.
Ames has really taken to the new offense.
“The three guys we play, like, me, iMac and Rohde, we can be aggressive coming off the ball screen, so that helps the team with, like, kickouts and open shots and stuff,” Ames said.
The biggest difference to Sanchez, who you can tell from what he’s about to say has been hanging around Tony Bennett for a long time, is in the area of ball security, and how that contributes to complementary basketball.
“The one area that we wanted to address after we came back from the Bahamas was taking care of the basketball, and I think personnel maybe has something to do with that. So, having Rohde and iMac and Dai Dai handle the ball primarily has done has been really good for us,” Sanchez said.
“That resonates more of, you know, the Virginia way of basketball, you know, eliminating losing, transition defense. I think we did a fantastic job today again, you know, back-to-back games in transition, so we continue to stack, you know, those behaviors, those habits and understanding how important those things are, you know, especially as the competition picks up, then, you know, we’ll have an opportunity,” Sanchez said.
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Chris Graham
