Virginia basketball fans worked themselves up in recent days over the prospect that coach Tony Bennett could land four-star shooting guard Blue Cain, who on Wednesday committed to Georgia.
That kind of thing, unfortunately, just happens.
So, what does today’s news mean for 2023-2024?
Let’s start at point guard. Bennett was able to land Georgetown transfer Dante Harris in December, but Harris is essentially a one-for-one replacement for five-year starter Kihei Clark.
Clark’s running mate, Reece Beekman, is testing the NBA waters, and while I’m not seeing any movement in Beekman’s status – I’m still not seeing him projected any higher than late second round, and several big boards have him going undrafted – he’s still in the draft pool.
And we saw what happened a couple of years ago, with Trey Murphy III, when a guy you expect to return stays in the draft pool.
The NIT happens, is what I’m getting at there.
Now, if you take a gander at the comments below, you’ll see that two readers – Jim Gillespie and Lennie Mosser – corrected me on one rather important point regarding my analysis of the roster situation in the backcourt.
Andrew Rohde, a 6’6″ dead-eye perimeter shooter who transferred in after a season at St. Thomas, where he was the Summit League freshman of the year, played point guard for the Tommies.
How did I miss that, you ask?
Yeah, I’m wondering myself.
Aside from admitting that I don’t watch much (read: any) Summit League ball during the winter months, I’ll tell you that I was thinking, based on his shot volume (13.6 field-goal attempts per game) and shot profile (56.3 percent of his attempts were jumpers and runners), that Rohde’s fit at Virginia would be more as an off-guard.
That’s where, obviously, Cain, regarded as one of the top prep shooters available in the Class of 2023, would have fit in.
Virginia returns to the off-guard spots Class of 2022 four-star Isaac McKneely, who was a solid fit as a freshman on both ends, and rising junior Taine Murray, who earned limited rotation minutes in the season’s final weeks, and is set to add combo guard Elijah Gertrude, a four-star Class of 2023 recruit who is coming off a torn ACL.
Rohde, as I discovered from diving into his profile on SynergySports, might not get into the paint as much as Beekman (35.6 percent of Rohde’s shots came at the rim; 45.3 percent of Beekman’s shots last season were at the rim), but he compares favorably as a penetrator to another big guard who played point for Bennett, Ty Jerome.
I’d argue that Jerome played a lot of off-guard in the 2018-2019 national championship season as Kihei Clark emerged that season as a role player and then a starter, but then I’d be diving into the weeds.
Point here being, Rohde is another guy who can play point; KenPom.com had him playing point for St. Thomas for 92 percent of the Tommies’ minutes over the team’s final five games in 2022-2023.
I’m still of the mindset that Bennett might be thinking of trying to buy himself some insurance at the point, just in case Beekman decides to stay in the draft.
That had to have been the motivation behind using a scholarship on Anthony Robinson, the three-star late signee who is almost certainly just on the roster to serve as insurance in the frontcourt.
Robinson, a 6’10” motor guy, best case, will compete with fellow incoming 6’10” freshman Blake Buchanan, a four-star, for minutes behind Jordan Minor, the 6’8” Merrimack transfer who can put the ball in the bucket, and Ryan Dunn, the 6’8” rising sophomore who emerged this past season as an elite defender.
Worst case, Robinson pushes the other bigs in October, ends up redshirting and then hits the transfer portal next spring.
Getting back to the situation at point: if Beekman returns, great, Bennett has three guys who can give him minutes at the one, one of whom, Rohde, can also give him punch at the two or three.
If Beekman decides to try his hand at getting a paying job, the backcourt rotation, and the situation at point, is a bit thinner.
At the least, the focus may be on finding another guy like a Rohde who can contribute at the point and as an off-guard.
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Chris Graham
