I wrote over the weekend that the lack of development of a pair of four-star UVA Basketball bigs, Blake Buchanan and Jacob Cofie, was an indictment on the coaching staff.
Which didn’t seem to go over well with said coaching staff.
The usually amiable Ron Sanchez bristled a bit when I asked about Buchanan and Cofie on Monday’s Zoom call with the ACC media.
I specifically noted in the question that it seemed to me that the young bigs seemed to me to have “hit a wall” late in the current season, a basic premise that Sanchez disputed.
“I wouldn’t say that there’s a wall,” Sanchez said. “I think Blake is managing it pretty well, maybe Jacob a little, but I think he’s on the other side of it. I do think that, you know, in the last couple of weeks, we’ve had the top tier of the conference on our schedule, you know, with Duke, Carolina, Clemson, Wake Forest, you know. So, we’ve had some of those top teams, and maybe they haven’t been as productive, because those teams have very good and experienced players, even the ones that are younger, very talented, you know.”
So, Buchanan is managing things well, huh? His numbers had started to go into decline before the Duke-UNC-Wake-Clemson stretch – he had one point, without a shot from the field, and seven boards in the win at Virginia Tech on Feb. 15, and he’s averaging 2.4 points and 3.8 rebounds per game over his last five.
And then, Cofie is “on the other side of it.” OK. The freshman did have nine points in 13 minutes in the loss at UNC, and 12 points in 26 minutes in the upset at Wake Forest.
Ahead of a goose egg, his second in four games, in the loss to Clemson on Saturday – 0-of-4 from the field, 0-of-2 at the line.
He at least had five rebounds in that one. The Duke goose egg was actually a double-goose egg – zero points and zero rebounds in 17 minutes, which seems hard to do.
Cofie hasn’t been the Cofie that we saw come of the gate in November with three straight double-digit games – he averaged 13.0 points and 7.7 rebounds, and showed range, connecting on 5-of-11 from three.
That was either fool’s gold, or something else is going on, but Cofie is averaging 6.5 points and 4.4 rebounds, and shot 5-of-29 from three, since.
Buchanan, meanwhile, hasn’t been the Buchanan that we saw in his second game as a collegian, when he put up 18 points and seven rebounds in a win over Florida in Charlotte, and got us all salivating in the process.
He didn’t put up another double-digit game the rest of the way in his freshman season, and he’s scored in double-digits five times this season in 29 games.
I don’t view the lack of productivity that we’re seeing from Buchanan and Cofie as a sign that they were improperly evaluated as prep recruits, as seems to be the case with another underachieving, to say the least, UVA big, former five-star recruit TJ Power, who began the season in the starting lineup, and now isn’t getting on the floor except at the end of blowouts.
You can see the bouncy athleticism and motor in Buchanan, the fluidity and savvy in Cofie, that we were sold on with both.
We’re also seeing both make the same mistakes over and over and over again – Buchanan shot-putting his floaters, Cofie fading away on short and midrange jumpers, which he’s shooting too many of anyway (Cofie is 21-of-54, 38.9 percent, on paint and midrange twos).
And then on defense, just, lack of consistency, plus being foul-prone – Cofie is averaging 5.0 fouls per 40 minutes, Buchanan, 4.3.
This time last year, I was writing about how Buchanan’s primary focus heading into the offseason needed to be the weight room, to get stronger, so that he could hold his position in the post better, and improve his rebounding.
I asked Sanchez on Monday what his advice would be for Buchanan heading into his second college offseason.
“I think Blake just needs to continue to get stronger, you know, just physically,” Sanchez said.
Let that sink in.
Kid is heading into his second college offseason with the basics of strength and conditioning still being an issue.
“Blake’s development this year is going to have to be, you know, spending a lot of quality time working on his physical development,” Sanchez said, “so then he can, you know, wrestle, you know, in the lane with certain guys, and be able to rebound better, so he can hold, you know, his spot and then go sky for the ball, as opposed to getting pushed around, and become a better interior one-on-one defender.”
Same question regarding Cofie.
The answer from Sanchez:
“Jacob just needs more experience,” Sanchez said. “He’s a strong, physical, you know, skilled kid with a, you know, a plethora of things that he can do offensively, but Jacob just has to understand that he needs, you know, to fix his effort in order for him to own, you know, a matchup defensively, you know, not one possession, he has to do that every possession that he’s on the floor.”
Buchanan and Cofie are both talented kids, with high ceilings – I can see Cofie’s ceiling being NBA; Buchanan’s is probably more, consistently productive ACC guy.
We need more out of our big-man coach to get more out of those guys.
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Chris Graham
