UVA basketball coach Tony Bennett has built the offense this season around third-year point guard Reece Beekman, a projected first-round NBA Draft pick next summer.
Offensive sets designed to allow Beekman to use picks and dribble-drives to get into the paint to create shots for himself and his teammates have largely replaced Bennett’s entrenched mover-blocker motion offense, to great success, from a look at the numbers.
Through Virginia’s first six games, with a healthy Beekman at the helm, the offense ranked fourth in the nation in adjusted offensive efficiency, according to KenPom.com, a massive improvement from the past few years – UVA ranked 85th in 2021-2022, 17th in 2020-2021, 234th (gulp!) in 2019-2020.
Problem has been, for the past two-plus games, Beekman has been at much less than 100 percent.
He suffered a sprained ankle in the second half of the 70-68 win at Michigan on Nov. 29, and was noticeably gimpy in his 31 minutes of floor time in a tighter-than-expected 62-57 win over Florida State on Dec. 3.
Then Beekman injured a hamstring four minutes into Tuesday’s 55-50 win over JMU.
The numbers tell the story: UVA averaged 1.168 points per possession with the healthy Beekman at the controls, but for the past two games, the offense with the gimpy and then benched Beekman is scoring just 0.928 points per possession.
Bennett explained after the JMU game what’s different with Beekman either limited or off the floor entirely.
“When you have guys that can touch the paint, it sucks people in, and you can get some rhythm shots. But when you go, when the games are real physical defensively, Florida State plays a different kind of defense, but obviously physical, and you’re working, and sometimes that happens in offense, shooting can kind of come and go. You work to get quality looks, but you can’t always count on it,” Bennett said.
“I think the shooting thing, Reece helps with that, but sometimes it’s just the physicality of the game, and how, you know, are there a lot of rhythm contests or open shots, and there weren’t quite as many in this game.”
In Virginia’s first six games, the team shot 45.2 percent from three-point range and 50 percent overall from the floor.
In the last two: 25 percent from three and 38.5 percent overall.
This is the value of Beekman doing his thing, getting good looks for himself and his teammates.
Beekman has scored on 10 layups and dunks that he created by his own rim runs this season, a 1.4-per-game number that is in line with where he was last season.
But his free throw attempts per game have nearly tripled from last year, to 3.5 per game, and the trips to the line are up across the board for the team with Beekman setting the tone there.
Virginia is averaging 26.1 free throw attempts per game this season, 11th nationally, after last year averaging just over half that, 14.6 per game, ranking 317th.
Beekman’s ankle and hammy are an obvious focus of attention for Bennett, his teammates and Wahoo Nation.
The good news there is, it’s exam break time, meaning Virginia has the next week off from games ahead of the matchup with top-ranked Houston in JPJ on Dec. 17.
“We don’t play for 10 days, so we’ll get him evaluated, treatment, and hopefully it’ll heal up, and he can, and a lot of guys can, heal up now,” Bennett said.
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Chris Graham
