Virginia basketball fans filed out of Thursday’s game against Bethune-Cookman breathing a sigh of relief. The final score pointed to a comfortable Cavalier win, but the first half was ugly, with an eight-minute scoring drought and eight turnovers. With sloppy and undisciplined play standing out as what held Virginia to only 18 points in the half, it was easy to miss the one thing that sums up the team’s offensive woes this season — they are not taking enough shots.
Given the surprise coaching change to start the season, growing pains were to be expected for Virginia this year. The departure of longtime coach Tony Bennett and the announcement of his interim successor, Ron Sanchez, called into question how a program that had for so long been run using Bennett’s system could transition to a new leader without compromising results.
Now, more than a month into the season, the Cavaliers have suffered four double-digit losses, having not even won a half in any of those games. All losses have come to strong teams with better records than Virginia, but the program had not lost four games by Dec. 15 since Bennett’s first season in Charlottesville in 2009, let alone by those margins.
There is clearly much lacking with this season’s team. But stellar play from a variety of players, combined with a defense that still ranks in the country’s top 50, suggests that the problem is not simply the roster, but that what truly needs to change is Virginia’s offense.
Simply put, in a game of basketball, both teams should leave having had nearly the same number of possessions. What varies is how they use those opportunities — what sorts of shots they take and how long it takes them to do so — and this is where the Cavaliers have struggled.
Virginia ranks dead last in the ACC in shots attempted per game, taking, on average, six fewer than the next team above, Wake Forest. That is not the only offensive metric in which the team is last, too — it takes the fewest free throws and is the worst rebounding team in the conference. According to kenpom.com, Virginia has the lowest tempo in the entirety of Division I basketball — they slow the game down and limit the number of possessions both teams have.
Low-tempo Virginia basketball — is anything new? The Cavaliers had the lowest tempo in the country last season and the fourth-lowest tempo before that. In 2019, when Bennett’s team won it all, they also had the lowest tempo in the country.
But this is not 2019 — the tried-and-true approach of slow offense and suffocating defense only works when the offense can also keep the game close. Too often, this team is passing up on shot opportunities then turning the ball over before finding a better one. Against a two-win Bethune-Cookman, Virginia got back into the game with stellar second-half performances from several players. One must wonder, however, whether or not that be replicable against ACC opponents, even the weakest of them.
The team has made a variety of tweaks and changes in an effort to make what exists work — all without really reassessing the system’s pace. Junior guards Andrew Rohde and Isaac McKneely and sophomore guard Dai Dai Ames have all been given the chance to play as the Cavaliers’ lead ball-handler and initiator. The lineup diversity added by freshman guard Ishan Sharma and freshman forward Jacob Cofie — both of whom tallied career highs in scoring against the Wildcats — has given the team a chance to create offense in different ways. The pace of play, however, is still slow, and should they seek to stay competitive against high level opposition, the team needs to be willing to speed up the game and take more shots.
Looking at the statistics, though, and at the defense’s ability to truly stifle high-level opposition, the problem remains that the team simply needs to shoot more. Virginia leads the ACC in three-point percentage but shoots the fifth fewest.
McKneely has shown the capability to take over games single-handedly from beyond the arc and his 23-point outing against Villanova is a testament to how the team can play when it is confident in its scorers. On the other hand, despite his tendency to lose the ball in motion, Rohde is quietly playing the most efficient basketball of his college career but is only fifth on the team in field goals attempted, and should certainly be given the chance to take more shots moving forwards.
In short, what is plaguing this Cavaliers offense does not seem to be a personnel issue. Talking heads may argue that this is a Virginia roster that lacks athleticism, interior presence and dominating wing play, but the more productive conversation to have, with conference play starting on New Year’s Eve, is what the team can do to win the games ahead.
Living and dying by the McKneely three-point shot is dangerous. Moreover, in focusing on the little things on offense — who brings the ball up, who sets the screen and who crashes the boards — Virginia has outsmarted itself. With the Cavaliers set to face a No. 21 Memphis squad Wednesday that recently outlasted No. 25 Clemson, the goal should be simple — shoot first, shoot more and learn lessons later.
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