Virginia overcomes sluggish effort, defeats Coppin State, 68-52

Virginia won, so, there is that. And there were some different offensive sets. Some posts for Jayden Gardner. A lot of high screens for Reece Beekman.

Some of it worked, not a lot.

It was like practice in front of a live crowd and TV audience no doubt flipping the channels liberally for the work-in-progress ‘Hoos.

It’s stretching credulity to think of the 68-52 win over Coppin State here Friday night as progress.

The Eagles cut a 20-point early second-half lead to 10 with 12:21 to go on a Nendah Tarke layup, and it’s not like UVA put the game away with a Cavalanche.

This team isn’t capable of a Cavalanche.

The guard imported from Indiana to create space on the perimeter, Armaan Franklin, was 0-of-4 from three, and is 6-of-23 from deep on the season.

The East Carolina transfer, Jayden Gardner, hyped in the offseason and in training camp for his skills down low, posted a double-double, 14 points and 12 rebounds, but was just 4-of-9 from the floor; he’s 17-of-36 (47.2 percent) for the season from the field.

Wait until the competition ratchets up.

Kadin Shedrick also had a double-double, 10 points and 10 boards, but still showed the same indecisiveness with the ball in the post as has plagued him for three years, leading to three turnovers.

Kihei Clark had 12 points and three assists. Nothing special about his game tonight – he was 4-of-7 from the floor, 1-of-2 from three, had just two turnovers.

Reece Beekman had six assists, but was just 2-of-8 from the floor, four of the misses contested layups, not a good line item for a guy who also struggles to make jumpers.

The one bright spot, marginally so, was freshman Igor Milicic Jr., who had 11 points on 3-of-6 shooting, 2-of-4 from three, in 12 bench minutes.

The 6’10” guard showed glimpses – good ball-handling, serviceable defense, a quick, simple, repeatable release on his jumper.

Don’t get too excited about any of this. Coppin State was 1-5 coming in, lost its opener 103-45 to Loyola-Chicago, gave up 97 points in a loss to DePaul.

A 68-52 win over a team that came into the game ranked 353rd nationally in offense and 310th in defense by KenPom.com is barely worth writing about.

Story by Chris Graham