Virginia coach Tony Bennett has been tinkering with his offense this season, trying to free up his guards, Reece Beekman and Kihei Clark, to create more opportunities both in the paint and on the perimeter for the team’s array of three-point sharpshooters.
The latest innovation, coinciding with the insertion of Ben Vander Plas into the starting lineup, has been the increased usage of three-man sets that involve screening actions in the post and are intended to create additional post-up opportunities, with secondary options for pick-and-pops on the perimeter.
“You know, you’re always looking for things, adjustments, things that can, you know, feed into their strengths, and we’ve used it with past teams, past years, but those guys, I think, it fits them well, and we have some other bases, but it’s good because it gives you a variety of looks,” Bennett said after Virginia’s 78-68 win over Virginia Tech.
The sets have figured heavily into Bennett’s new small-ball lineup, which he first used to turn things around in the second half of what turned into a 65-58 win over North Carolina on Jan. 10.
The small lineup uses the 6’8” Vander Plas at the five spot, and the success of the grouping led Bennett to go with Vander Plas as the starter at center, in place of 6’11” redshirt junior Kadin Shedrick.
BVP has gone for double digits in scoring in each of the past three games, and his ability to hit the three has opened up opportunities for his teammates, in particular Armaan Franklin, who has been averaging 15.4 points over his last seven games, and of late has been getting looks in the post on the back end of the three-man actions.
“I think Armaan, it’s freed him up a little bit, he’s been more aggressive, and Ben’s got very good feel, so he’s, you know, he’s handy in that because of his passing, and now he’s stretching a little bit with a three-ball,” Bennett said.
Since Bennett went to Vander Plas at center in the second half of the UNC game, Virginia has been averaging a healthy 1.261 points per possession, a 10.5 percent improvement over the 1.141 points per possession UVA has been averaging offensively this season.
“I think the movement with Reece, Armaan and Ben, when they’re inside, you know, the screening and cutting, and you know, it’s hard for the defenses to kind of just play against,” said Kihei Clark, who had 20 points and five assists in the win over Virginia Tech.
“You’ve got me on the side, and iMac on the other side just being ready to shoot, you know, you have baseline drives when you’re on the wing, so I think it’s kind of just something that suits our playing style,” Clark said.
How is the new lineup doing defensively?
As with anything involving a Tony Bennett-coached team, it’s great that the changes are working on offense, but he would be loathe to stick with them if there weren’t good results on the defensive end.
The results on the BVP-at-center experiment are mixed, for the time being, anyway.
Virginia, since the 15:12 mark of the second half in the win over UNC, when Bennett went with Vander Plas at the five, has surrendered 1.035 points per possession.
That’s up 10.8 percent over the 0.934 points per possession the ‘Hoos have allowed overall this season.
This could be a small sample size thing. The bulk of the damage there came in the win over Virginia Tech, which scored 68 points on 60 possessions (1.133 PPP).
UNC scored 21 points on its final 22 possessions (0.995 PPP) in the final 15:12 of its loss last week, and Florida State scored 58 points in its 60 possessions (0.966 PPP) in the 67-58 loss in Tallahassee.
Gardner, who had 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting in the win over Tech, said there are adjustments that need to be made across the board with the new lineup.
“I mean, the biggest thing for the smaller lineup is everyone gang rebounding, come back and rebound, and I think that’s what we’ve been doing,” Gardner said. “It’s been a tremendous job, guards coming back, and for me, you know, just guys just trusting me. You know, I’ve been doing this for a while, so I just got to get back into a rhythm.”
Virginia outrebounded Virginia Tech last night, and lost the boards battle to a much bigger FSU team by just one last week.
Bennett, being Bennett, being a defensive-minded guy, is not surprisingly, given the numbers on the defensive end, still noncommittal on the longevity of the new lineup.
“It doesn’t mean we won’t have to play bigger at times,” Bennett said, adding that Shedrick and seven-footer Francisco Caffaro need to “just keep staying ready, because the game brings different situations, and that’s why practice is valuable.”
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Chris Graham
