Your UVA Basketball questions: Who starts, the rotation, what about the freshmen?

UVA Basketball is three years removed from a national title, but last year ended with a third-round loss in the NIT.

Tony Bennett is bringing back the six guys who got starts for his team last season, including the last holdover from the 2019 title team, Kihei Clark.

In addition, he has one of the most sought-after guys from the 2022 transfer portal, former Ohio U. power forward Ben Vander Plas, and the best recruiting class he’s had since the 2016 group that formed the backbone of the ’19 championship team.

All the pieces seem to be in place for a return to the nation’s elite.

But there’s a lot to be settled between now and the tipoff on Monday, Nov. 7.

You’ve got the questions. I’ll try to give good answers.

Who starts – another way of saying, is Kihei still in the starting five?

Some of you are going to hate me for saying this, but it would utterly shock me if Kihei Clark isn’t in the starting five for the opener.

The 5’9” grad student has started 108 games at Virginia dating back to the 2018-2019 season.

But I get what’s behind the question. Clark has been a lightning rod for UVA fans, which I think is a bit unfair, but again, I get why.

Why I think it’s unfair that Clark gets so much criticism is that the criticism is based on the idea that he tries to do too much, when to me, I think it’s a matter of him being asked to do too much, and maybe that also there’s an issue with his teammates not stepping up when the opportunity presents itself.

I’m not sure that’s an issue this year. This year’s team needs to be Reece Beekman’s team, but Beekman needs to make it his team.

I think Beekman is an NBA talent, and he’s shown flashes of that, but needs to be more consistent.

An argument against having him sharing the floor with Clark as much as he does is that Bennett using the two together limits what Beekman can do, and I can see the argument there.

I’d offer as a counterpoint that Clark played alongside Ty Jerome in 2018-2019, and was a complementary piece to Jerome, with Clark taking the defensive assignment against opponents’ point guards to take that pressure off Jerome, allowing Jerome to guard bigger guards off-ball and then focus on running the team at the point on the offensive end.

I would expect Clark’s minutes to be down a bit from the 36.0 minutes per game that he averaged last season, assuming that freshman Isaac McKneely will be able to take some of his minutes, and maybe Bennett will go big at times with Beekman, Armaan Franklin and Vander Plas in the backcourt based on matchups.

I still see Clark getting 26-30 minutes per game, at least in the early-season schedule, with his minutes going in either direction based on the development of McKneely and Vander Plas.

What about the other freshmen?

I’d expect Isaac Traudt to get a chance at minutes in the post, but minutes in the frontcourt are going to be a challenge, with Vander Plas, at 6’8”, likely to get some minutes at the four spot behind Jayden Gardner, last season’s leading scorer, and Kadin Shedrick and Francisco Caffaro back at the five.

The early reports on Leon Bond and Ryan Dunn are that both are maybe further along as freshmen than some had expected, but both are combo twos-threes, and the minutes there are going to be tight with Franklin, McKneely, Vander Plas and sophomore Taine Murray in the mix.

Does ‘Papi’ still get 18 minutes a night?

Kadin Shedrick had a nice Italy trip, seems poised to take a step forward. I think ideally, he’s the starter at five, and when he’s out, Bennett can substitute offense for defense with Vander Plas as a sort of stretch five alongside Gardner, if the matchups allow for that.

We can hope that Traudt plays his way into being the first five off the bench, which would add punch with his perimeter ability.

But we all know how Bennett loves guys like Clark and Caffaro who do the little things that nobody notices with on-ball and positional defense, boxing out on rebounds, the rest.

He gave Jack Salt 106 starts, including 29 in the championship season, for chrissakes.

I see Caffaro getting 10-12 minutes a night early on, with his minutes diminishing as we see Vander Plas and Traudt get more comfortable in the system.

You mentioned Taine Murray. Does he get any minutes in the rotation?

Murray had seemed to play his way into the rotation with the big night in the loss to Iowa in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge last season, then played his way back out not long after.

A tough 6’6”, Murray struggled on the defensive end enough that his perimeter shooting wasn’t enough to earn him more looks.

I’m actually surprised he didn’t hit the transfer portal in the offseason, only because it doesn’t seem that there are minutes for him this year or really even next year, with the 2022 freshman class, and what we’re seeing on the way in 2023.

Can this team be better offensively?

Virginia averaged 1.076 points per possession last season, the second lowest for a Bennett team in the past 10 years, according to KenPom.com, with a big issue being the 32.3 percent shooting from three-point range (national rank: 257).

Here we have to hope that the late-season improvement from the perimeter of Franklin and Beekman continues, and that McKneely and Vander Plas, a 33.8 percent shooter from behind the arc last season, can help stretch defenses and open up driving lanes and post-entry passes.

If Bennett can get minutes out of lineups that have Beekman, Franklin, McKneely and Vander Plas on the floor at the same time, we can see Beeks making it interesting for opposing coaches to have to decide whether to help his defender on dribble-drives at the expense of leaving one of the other three open at the stripe for the knockdown.

How about the defense?

Yeah, the D suffered last season, giving up .959 points per possession, the most allowed by a Bennett UVA team since his second season on Grounds, in 2010-2011.

What’s hard to figure there is, Beekman, Clark and Franklin are all good on-ball defenders in the backcourt, Shedrick is a premier shot-blocker, and Gardner and Caffaro are solid positional post defenders.

I think a year of experience playing together will help this group, which I expect to be much, much better, and much more like classic Tony Bennett UVA teams defensively.

Alright, smart guy. Tony usually plays eight. What’s the rotation?

Bennett, indeed, prefers to go with a tight rotation, and eight seems to be the magic number.

My crystal ball has Beekman, Clark and Franklin starting in the backcourt, with McKneely the first perimeter guy off the bench, and Gardner and Caffaro starting at the four and five, with Vander Plas and Traudt coming off the bench – Vander Plas getting some minutes at three, some at four and some at five.

If Shedrick gets in foul trouble, Caffaro is the ninth guy.

That leaves Murray, Bond and Dunn on the cutting-room floor.

How are you voting this team?

I’ve given up my vote for All-ACC teams, but if I were to cast one, I’d put Virginia third in the conference, though I think there’s not much separation between the top three – North Carolina, Duke and UVA.

I’m looking forward to the early-season trip to Vegas (UVA opens with Baylor, and will play either UCLA or Illinois in the second game), the ACC/Big Ten Challenge game at Michigan, and the one with Houston coming to JPJ before Christmas, to get a gauge on where this team is.

I know the core of this team is the one that finished last year in the NIT, but I think the guys being a year older, a year more experienced in the system, and with help from Vander Plas and the freshmen, it all should translate to a lot more this season.