Junior guard Andrew Rohde does not pay attention to his stats. Except for one, that is — his assist to turnover ratio, a simple metric calculated by dividing a player’s assists by how many times they lose possession. The result is a fairly strong portrayal of a player’s playmaking and their net offensive contributions.
Rohde has taken leaps as a passer this season, reflected by his ratio since Dec. 31 of five assists for every turnover, and by Interim Coach Ron Sanchez’s use of him as Virginia’s starting point guard and offensive conductor. He partly attributes this to his mental attitude — he likes to go into a game with a clear head, waiting until afterward to study the box score and see how many scores he generated with his passing while limiting mistakes.
“There’s an added pressure, when you’ve got the ball in your hands a lot more, to not turn the ball over,” Rohde said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily. “I don’t really think about a lot of that stuff, though — going into games I just try and go in with a mentality of trying to help my team win, and I try not to put too much pressure on myself.”
Rohde’s job as the team’s point guard is far from just being a passer and facilitator. He brings the ball up the court, sets the tone for the possession with the first couple reads, stays active off the ball and, on occasion, creates his own shots as well.
After impressing at St. Thomas in the 2022-23 season, Rohde transferred to Virginia and played over 25 minutes per game in a more off-ball role in his first season as a Cavalier. Working alongside Reece Beekman, Rohde — an offensive force of his own in his time with the Tommies — struggled to make the same impact on the offensive end last season.
But heading into the 2024-25 season, change was certainly in the air. The shocking exit of Tony Bennett and Sanchez’s appointment as his interim replacement turned heads, with an abundance of questions arising about the storied program’s future and what the team would look like, both offensively and defensively.
Rohde started the season plagued by turnovers, averaging 2.9 per game through the team’s first 10 games, but he has since tidied up his act, with that 5.0 ratio since conference play began. Being a team’s lead ball-handler comes with all sorts of added expectations, and Rohde said that his improvements have come as a result of “comfortability” in his new role, as well as his relationships and trust with his teammates.
“As I got more and more games under [my] belt [I] get more and more comfortable with the ball in [my] hands,” Rohde said. “It definitely helped a lot, knowing the places that [my teammates] are going to be and knowing the spots that they like the ball.”
Rohde shares a backcourt with two guards — junior Isaac McKneely and sophomore Dai Dai Ames — who are both strong shot creators in their own respects.
McKneely and Ames’ unselfishness, Rohde says, is what makes them such a strong trio. Three guys who can make their own shots as well as create advantages through passing puts a lot of pressure on a defense.
“When [Rohde] comes off ball screens he sees everything,” McKneely said. “He sees the floor really well. As a shooter I love it because he puts the ball right in my chest. All I have to do is just go up and shoot it.”
Rohde creates most of his passing and scoring opportunities out of the pick-and-roll — when he pairs with one of the team’s bigger players to disrupt the opposing defense. Rohde pointed to his extra time in the gym with sophomore forward Blake Buchanan over the past two seasons as helping them both get a lot out of each other’s games this season.
He also said his work with newcomers in junior forward Elijah Saunders and freshman forward Jacob Cofie has helped him make big plays on offense.
“I know they have my back, [and] I have theirs,” Rohde said. “I trust them to catch the ball even when I put it in a spot where it might be hard for them to get.”
The continued votes of confidence given to him by Sanchez also helped him get comfortable in his new role, Rohde said. He added that Sanchez keeps telling him to “be himself,” and that the entire staff’s trust helps him make the right decisions on the court.
However, Sanchez is far from the only voice supporting Rohde through the transition to the new role. Legendary Virginia guard Kyle Guy returned to Charlottesville this offseason, prior to Bennett’s departure, as an athlete development mentor and special assistant. Rohde said he and Guy are both “the same type of competitor” and also have a mutual appreciation of a sausage, egg and cheese everything bagel from Bodo’s Bagels.
“We go at it a lot in practice,” Rohde said. “He’s always telling me different reads and different looks I can try that might help me a lot. It definitely helps to have a guy like that who reads the game in such a unique way.”
Averaging double as many points as last year on remarkably higher efficiency, Rohde has soared to become the team’s third leading scorer — averaging 9.1 points — in addition to its leading passer. He is remarkably effective at coming off a screen and positioning himself between his defender and the basket, which he says allows him to read the opponent’s defense to decide if he is going to take a shot or pass it off.
“During practice we work a lot on two-on-one situations,” Rohde said. “So when I’ve got my defender on my hip or behind me, I try to keep him there, and at that point it’s just, ‘read the big’ — if he’s in drop coverage I try to get to my floater or my pull-up. It’s kind of a little game you have to play with a lot of pass fakes and try to play off two feet.”
That ability to get his defender in “jail” does not show up on the box score the way the points and assists might. That is not a big problem for Rohde — again, what matters is keeping the mistakes to a minimum and finding ways to help the team win.
And he does that on both ends. Rohde leads the team in steals and is often tasked with guarding the opponent’s main playmaker — where the active hands and quick footwork which he said he fine-tuned while watching Beekman last year have been invaluable.
“Our coaches really harp on ball pressure and trying to make the guy who’s dribbling the ball uncomfortable so he can’t make any easy passes,” Rohde said. “Watching Reece all of last year, it really just stood out to me how active he was, not only with his feet being quick but with his hands as well.”
While some of the positive parts of Rohde’s play are reflected in the box score and others fly under the radar, the season still trudges on, and the wins have not been coming in droves — or recently, at all. With only two wins against conference opponents — games against NC State and Boston College in which Rohde scored a combined 27 points and assisted 13 baskets with only one turnover — Virginia is still looking to create positive momentum.
“I think at this point in the season, I have to just continue to do what I do, but I have got to keep elevating to a higher level so we can actually start winning as many games as we can,” Rohde said.
Rohde is still optimistic that wins will come, but the nightmarish start to Virginia’s season has already cast doubt over the future of almost every player on the team, as well as its staff. Currently, the fifth-worst team in the conference in point differential, the offense regularly shows it does not have the level of creation to stay in close games. Paired with the fact that the famous Cavaliers defense, accustomed to being one of the best in the country, is not even leading the conference nor in the top 50 nationwide, alarm bells are ringing.
However, when Rohde is playing at his best, few players in the country can replicate his ability to create shots for his teammates, limit turnovers on offense and force mistakes on defense.
No one is more grateful to have Rohde in a Virginia uniform than his teammates. Virginia cruised past Boston College Tuesday with a 74-56 win, snapping a five-game losing streak. Rohde tied his Virginia career high of 16 points in the game and logged six assists. He never turned the ball over. McKneely, when asked about his teammate, smiled.
“It’s a blessing playing with Rohde,” McKneely said. “He’s just going to continue to do great things for us.”
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