After a bit of a slow start to his final season of college basketball, Virginia forward Jayden Gardner has been back to resembling more of his form from a year ago.
Gardner was the focal point of the Virginia offense last season, his first with the Cavaliers after spending his first three years at East Carolina.
He came to Charlottesville with a reputation of a productive interior scorer and a solid rebounder, putting up 18.1 points and 11.5 boards in 79 career games with the Pirates.
In 2021-22, Gardner did not disappoint, averaging team-highs of 15.3 points and 6.4 rebounds per contest as a Wahoo. He scored in double figures in 24 of his 35 games, including in 17 of the last 18 of the season, as he patented his sweet mid-range jump shot.
That’s why it didn’t make any sense to Cavalier fans when Gardner failed to hit the double-digit scoring mark in each of the first three games of the season back in November. He tallied just 19 points on 4-of-15 shooting in those first three contests against NC Central, Monmouth and Baylor.
Ever since, the 6-foot-6, 235-pound native of Wake Forest, N.C., has continually improved in all facets of the game, as he and the Wahoos are locked in on their goal of getting back to the NCAA Tournament in March.
“Our focus should just be on getting better as a unit and building our chemistry, and building it through our defense, and just trying to get better every day,” Gardner said back at ACC Tip Off in October. “Because we know that we fell short [of the Big Dance] last year, but we’re just trying to get better so we don’t have to be in that same position [this year].”
Gardner has done all he can to help make that a reality as of late, scoring 10 points or more in eight of his last nine games, and after falling short of 50-percent shooting from the field in that trio of games to start the season, he’s also achieved that feat in eight of the last nine.
He’s back at the top of the team’s scoring and rebounding lists as a result, averaging 12.0 points (on 55-percent shooting) and 5.7 boards (20th in the conference) on the season, including 2.0 a night on the offensive glass, good for a tie for 12th in the conference. He’d be ranked in the top 10 in the ACC in field-goal percentage, but his current 4.8 makes per game are just shy of the minimum 5.0 needed to qualify.
Across the aforementioned nine-game stretch, Gardner is shooting 53-for-88 from the field (60 percent), as opposed to the 27-percent clip at which he began the campaign.
He’s also averaging 5.7 rebounds across that stretch, and has collected 11 steals and blocked seven shots (he had just one steal and no blocks in the first three games). Gardner has secured 6 or more rebounds in five of his last seven outings.
“We’re just trying to find our identity and get back to what we do, and just getting back here and having fun,” Gardner said after the Hoos got back in the win column in the nonconference finale against UAlbany last week, when he scored 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting and grabbed a game-high 7 rebounds. “These two losses haven’t been fun for the team, so we just got back to work… We’re just getting back to what we do, and playing our style of basketball — Virginia basketball.”
Ohio grad transfer Ben Vander Plas, a traditional power forward like Gardner, is averaging 22.2 minutes per game, which makes the position a little more by-committee than last season, as Gardner is only averaging 2.3 minutes more.
One area that has been a bit of a concern has been Gardner’s foul trouble from time to time. In seven of Virginia’s 12 games, he’s picked up two or more fouls. That doesn’t seem too horrible in and of itself, but if you consider that his average minutes per game is down from 32.7 a year ago to just 24.5 in 2022-23, it explains why his numbers are down across the board. He’s only registered 30-plus minutes three times this season, as opposed to 24 times last year.
It’s not that Gardner’s committing fouls, it’s when he’s picking them up. Against Monmouth, he was whistled twice in a span of 24 seconds in the first half — at the 8:25 mark and then again at 8:01, and wasn’t much of a factor from there on out, scoring 9 points in 16 minutes and picking up two more fouls after halftime.
In the upset win over Baylor in Las Vegas, Gardner picked up his second personal just 20 seconds into the second half and finished with 7 points in just 17 minutes.
Luckily for Cavalier fans, Gardner has avoided disqualification thus far, and has managed to dodge the whistles altogether in three games. The bottom line is that UVA needs Gardner on the floor as much as possible.
The more minutes the big man sees, the more he’s able to produce on both ends of the court, which translates into greater success for the program. Yes, the additions of Vander Plas and freshman Ryan Dunn (12.5 minutes per game) have carved into Gardner’s do-it-all responsibilities from a year ago in the paint, but most coaches would consider all that talent and depth available at the 4-spot as a good problem to have.
With the grind of ACC competition taking the spotlight over the next two months, Virginia will need consistent contributions from Gardner. If his recent performances are any indication, you can go ahead and start making those plans for March Madness any day now.
As long as Gardner is out there providing his experience and veteran leadership, as well as putting the ball in the basket, grabbing loose balls and staying out of foul trouble, the Hoos are in great shape to compete night in and night out with just about any team in the country.
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