UVA Hoops Mailbag: Playing time for Andrew Rohde, NCAA Tournament resume

I hadn’t been getting much in terms of the mailbag from UVA hoops fans of late, which I attribute to, I’m the place that people go when things aren’t going well, because I’m the one who will tell you why, in no uncertain terms.

Now that things are back on the upswing, yeah, people don’t need me as much.

Surprised the heck out of me to have a couple of items in the ol’ inbox this morning.

To the mailbag …

The minutes for Andrew Rohde thing

Chris, love reading your observations on UVA basketball.  Really loved your take on Andrew Rohde. I had suspicions that Taine Murray or at least Elijah Gertrude should be getting his minutes. Now, I have absolutely no doubt that this is the case, especially Taine after last night. Taine is bigger, stronger, more athletic and definitely a better shooter. CTB must really love Rohde, but I hope he gets over that soon. As you wrote, he, unfortunately, adds nothing and is a minus on defense.

– Eric

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The bad thing for Rohde is, I didn’t realize until halftime, when I looked at the stat sheet, that he had only played six minutes in the first half.

When you don’t notice that a guy didn’t play much, that’s because you’ve been conditioned not to expect much from him.

I apparently was just ahead of the curve with my column the other day. Tony only gave Rohde 12 minutes last night.

Murray checked in for the first time at the 6:28 mark of the first half, then proceeded to be my game MVP.

I’m joyed to see Murray and Jordan Minor contributing so much now after having to sit for so long.

– Chris

Already on the bubble?

I can’t help but think the bad losses and lack of Quad 1-caliber games remaining will hurt their NCAA resume for March. Virginia Tech at their place is a tall task, Miami is still pretty good, right? UNC coming to JPJ is a tall mountain to scale, and oh yeah, Duke at Cameron. Kyle Filipowski and Jeremy Roach are playing very well.

I see them being (21-10) or (22-9) before the ACC Tournament starts. Your thoughts. Going (2-1) vs. Miami, Duke, and UNC would be overachieving, or maybe I’m wrong. And you gotta wonder if they will have a cold night against Clemson, Wake, or even Pitt. I know the ACC has had a down year by the high standards set in year’s past. I’ve gotta think the ‘Hoos will be a bubble team and will need at least two wins in the conference tournament. There are a lot of good teams out here this year nobody talks about. Thoughts? BTW, as of the time I sent this email Joe Lunardi doesn’t even have them in a play-in game. Gotta split those four between Clemson, Miami, UNC and Duke. Would that be enough?

– Bryan

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You know, I’m going to talk like Tony right now, and just say, I’m focused more on each game, and quality.

Play well, and the rest will take care of itself.

I really think this is a different team now, with Minor giving them a presence in the interior, and I expect that we’ll see more quality out of Dante Harris, who still isn’t 100 percent yet.

Tony is still tweaking the rotation, as we saw last night, when he started Rohde, then only used him for 12 minutes, in an OT game.

I still don’t think we’ve seen the best from this team yet.

Last year, I think we saw the best from that team in November, in the wins over Baylor and Illinois, and the win at Michigan.

I expect to see this team really hitting its stride in a few weeks.

If this team continues to get better, the NCAA Tournament stuff will take care of itself.

– Chris

Minor for last night’s MVP

Hopefully, this is the way to email the UVA Hoops mailbag.

I really want to make Jordan Minor my player of the game for his performance against D.J. Burns (275 pounds? Not recently!). To me, Minor was quicker and better positioned than Burns and matched his physicality. Minor was disciplined. He stuck with Burns when NC State tried to tempt him away to double-team the ball handler.

But, alas, it’s impossible to ignore Dunn’s contributions. Wow!

Co-players of the game, yes?

– Matt

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It was tough deciding on last night’s MVP. There were five guys in double figures in scoring in a game in which Virginia scored 59 points, for one thing.

For another, I didn’t end up going with Dunn, and he had a double-double (13 points, 12 rebounds) and also had six (!) blocked shots.

I went with Murray because I think he stabilized the backcourt, which has been on my mind since I addressed the Rohde issue in a column over the weekend.

And I’m casting Minor as my favorite for player of the month for what he’s done to give this Virginia team heft in the frontcourt that had been sorely missing for the first two-plus months of the season.

– Chris