Well, after all the buildup the ACC tournament turned out - for UVA, at any rate - like most other weekend series. Go somewhere, win more than you lose, go home, and no special accolades attached, which is code for we didn't win it.
That said, I don't call it entirely unsuccessful. UVA got dusted by the Hokies on Wednesday - bad - and dusted Georgia Tech the next day - good. Losing the first game meant we needed three things in order to happen in order to see the Hoos in the championship game, and #'s 1 and 3 got taken care of just fine while #2 (GT needed to beat VT, and didn't) never materialized. Some short takeaways from the weekend:
-- When FSU dropped their second game of the tourney, it assured us of one important thing: UVA has more ACC championships this year than anyone else. No ties: we have five to everyone else's less-than-five.
-- It's kind of been a while since Nick Howard started a game, and lately when Brandon Waddell has a good game it's usually on the order of "nice job getting out of all those jams." I'm pleased to watch Waddell battle; you can tell he's got some of that no-fear mentality that our coaches want to see out of their starters, and when you've got that, developing your stuff is the easy part. But right now, Scott Silverstein is the starter I trust the most on the hill.
-- Which in turn sets up nicely for the upcoming regional. The #1 seed has the luxury of the option to hold back their ace for the second game,** and the way it goes this year, we don't even have to mess with the rotation to achieve that.
** Which I maintain is the most important game regardless of seed, but typically, the 1 seed is guaranteed to have the tougher contest in the second game, while the same can't be said for the 2/3 seeds.
-- Kevin McMullan has always been the Shamel Bratton of third-base coaches. Don't do that don't do that why did you do that YESSSSSSS
-- Florida State - the #2 seed and Atlantic Division champion - went 0-3 on the week. If you like you may call that an indictment of the silly division system that awards pointless division championships and serves no purpose whatsoever. Although I would temper that by pointing out that FSU would've been the #3 seed in a correct divisionless system and would've still had GT and VT on their plate.
-- Seeing Whit Mayberry go long enough to be eligible for a win is nice. That pretty much officially gives us four starters for the NCAAs, and a fifth (Kyle Crockett) who can turn in some very long relief outings and destroy left-handed hitting besides. (And has a fan in Mike Martin, who sounded slightly awestruck in saying Crockett has a "beautiful, beautiful arm." There's no Danny Hultzen or even a Tyler Wilson or Branden Kline on this staff, but what it lacks in ace-quality pitching it makes up for in depth. Long after opponents have gotten into the part of their bullpen that makes their fans sweat, we're still trotting out quality arms.
-- A school of thought said that if we knew the FSU game would be meaningless as it relates to the ACC tournament (which it was since VT had already clinched their trip to Sunday's championship game) we should empty the bench and play all the dudes who don't otherwise play. In retrospect, I'm glad we didn't, as it gave our players one last taste of extra-innings drama - and another lesson in how to win - before the NCAAs began.
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And now for future baseball stuff instead of past baseball stuff:
-- UVA's tournament draw is pretty decent. Nobody stands out as particularly scary in our own regional of UNC-Wilmington, Elon, and Army. Army does have a solid pitching staff and will probably toss Chris Rowley again, the same guy UVA faced in last season's regional and managed to hit fairly well. But no power-conference two-seeds and no sneaky mid-majors, like, say....
-- ....South Alabama, who is in our paired regional as a two-seed against host Mississippi State. The Bulldogs actually got two such sneaky mid-majors, with Mercer tossed in there as well. Mississippi State has a top-ten RPI but in terms of record was fifth in the SEC, behind Vandy, LSU, Arkansas, and South Carolina. So we could've done worse in the draw. Much worse. UVA, by the way, is the national 6 seed.
-- I'll tell you who else could've done worse: Miami. The tournament committee practically fellated the Hurricanes. Miami's RPI is 19th, which might help explain it, but sheesh: this was a team with a losing ACC record. They did beat Clemson, VT, and GT in weekend series, but also lost series to Duke, BC(!), and Wake (three of the four non-entrants to the ACC tournament) as well as Florida, who is a regional 3 seed. Which is probably what Miami should be. Instead they're a 2 seed with a nationally unseeded regional host. Wut? Well, they have one of the nation's toughest 3 seeds in Oklahoma State, so it's not all craziness. I guess either the committee likes their RPI + series wins, or else it's a measure of respect for the ACC.
-- This is the bracket that will be used next year and in the future at ACC baseball tournaments. It's a 10-team double-elimination. Having been morbidly fascinated by how they will pull that off, I find that the final product doesn't disappoint in all its convolusion. Stare at it til your head hurts, then come back here for the explanation, such as it is, if you need it. Let's see if I can interpret that:
* The teams will be divided into two pools of five: 1-4-6-7-9 and 2-3-5-8-10.
* The top two seeds will get a bye. (Presumably, they will still be, stupidly, the division winners.)
* The first set of games, on Tuesday, will be 4-9, 6-7, 3-10, and 5-8. The losers of those games head to the loser's bracket to play Wednesday. In each pool, the best-seeded winner gets a bye til Thursday, and the worst-seeded winner plays the 1 or 2 seed on Wednesday, the winner of which advances to Thursday.
* The winner of this Thursday winner's bracket game advances to Saturday. The loser heads to the loser's bracket, which concludes sorting itself out on Friday and sends a team to Saturday.
* By Saturday, we only have four teams left, two from each pool, which will play a single-elimination tourney to decide a champion on Sunday.
Got all that? On one hand, I guess it's nice that they've found a way to reward better-seeded teams. (I'm avoiding using the term "higher-seeded" because that bracket uses that term to mean worse.) On the other hand, that has potential to grind up pitching staffs something fierce, and plus nobody will be able to understand it. Is the ACC baseball tournament such a cash cow that it's so vital to have 10 teams there? (No. It isn't.) Better alternatives include:
* The same thing we're doing now.
* Not having a tourney at all, playing one extra week of regular season ball, and handing the banner to the team with the best record.
* This.
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Further stuff in brief:
-- Fresh off losing one Richardson, the football team picks up a future one in the form of OL Will Richardson. Despite the limited space in the 2014 class, I think we'll probably try to get one more OL, but with Richardson and Steven Moss, the class is a paragon of quality-not-quantity on the OL. Richardson has ratings ranging from high three stars to sitting inside the ESPN 150. (Though admittedly, had he chosen Florida State instead, he had a much better likelihood of staying there.)
-- Paul Jesperson has settled on Northern Iowa as his landing spot. Much closer to his home of Wisconsin than his other option, USC. Much luck to him.
-- UVA's first two football games - BYU and Oregon - will both be 3:30 games, the former on ESPNUVA and the latter on ESPN2 or ABC depending on your location. Win. A strong showing in those games - which is probably to say, beat BYU and don't get embarrassed by Oregon - should set us up for decently-televised games through mid-October. And since that's the softer part of the schedule, moving through it with aplomb might just give us some well-timed games (i.e. not at noon on Raycom) the rest of the year.
Showing posts with label jesperson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jesperson. Show all posts
Monday, May 27, 2013
Monday, April 15, 2013
weekend review
I didn't preview the Duke lacrosse game, but an astute comment on the GT post predicted it better than I would have:
This was a game of runs, with the pendulum making several swings between delivering and receiving the ass-beating. UVA's 13-9 lead ended up being a rather false hope, as Duke scored 10 of the next 11 goals. Truthfully, the game wasn't as close as the score: UVA was beaten in the shots-on-goal category 35-24, at faceoffs 23-15, total shots 55-40, and cleared only 75% of their opportunities. I'm beginning to think the only way to find out why Duke always brings out the worst in our defense is to kidnap an assistant coach and torture the answers out of him, but then again I've been reading Game of Thrones lately so my ideas might be a little darker than normal.
UVA has now left itself only one thread of hope for making the NCAA tournament: win all of the next three games. That's the only way to earn the.500-or-better record the NCAA requires for at-large teams. And I don't even think that would do it, really. Of course, at this point if you're still thinking NCAA tournament, there's nothing I can say to shoot down your very misplaced optimism except that your efforts might be better spent finding a team with a golden horseshoe jammed up its ass, like Ohio State football.
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That golden horseshoe team certainly isn't UVA baseball, at least not this weekend. UVA dominated the Saturday game behind some ridiculously good pitching from Scott Silverstein, who gave up two hits - one of them of the extremely cheap variety - in seven innings, and struck out nine. I don't trust Silverstein's reconstructed shoulder enough to think that we can always get that kind of performance, but that was one of the better lineups UVA will face or has faced in ACC play. If he can dominate them he can certainly work some magic on the rest of the conference too. Given the reputation Silverstein had coming out of high school, file that one under "what could've been" and repeat the UVA mantra, which as always is: "we can't have nice things."
This is not to say that the rest of the pitching was poor, of course: that GT lineup only scored seven runs in the three games. Brandon Waddell had a nervous-looking start on Friday but then settled down beautifully, and UVA lost 2-1. Truthfully, I think third-base coach Kevin McMullen ran us right out of that one by sending Derek Fisher home from second on a single to left, whereupon he was cut down at the plate.
My usual philosophy on sending runners is that coaches should be hyper-aggressive with two outs, and send all 50/50 or even 40/60 chances (because your chances of scoring if you hold the runner are essentially equal to the batting average of the next hitter) but exercise a great deal of caution with less than two outs. Which was the case with Fisher. Holding a runner on a grounder (which is what the single was) isn't even cautious, it's just smart: a grounder can and will be charged and the outfielder can come up firing. It's different if the OF has to go side-to-side to get the ball, and if he's going glove side then you send him without hesitation, but a grounder straight at him is going to get you nailed. With one out and runners at the corners you have a lot of tools in your toolbox to get that runner home, and Reed Gragnani (the next hitter) is a senior who can be counted on to know the value of a fly ball. Since the score was 2-1 at that time and the rest of the game saw mostly quiet bats, it turned out to be one of the key plays in the loss.
On Sunday....well, GT basically tossed the dice and won, letting the rain finish up their 3-2 win. Not a bad strategy when you know your bullpen is just about cashed. Everyone knew going in that UVA had the deeper pen than GT, which I'm sure played no part whatsoever in the decision not to fit in a doubleheader on Saturday. The point that UVA certainly had the chance not to let in three runs and the chance to score more than two is stipulated to. That said, sometimes you lose a series and you're glad to have pulled one win out of it and you hope that team ends up in the opposite bracket of the ACC tournament. This series left no reason to fear the Jackets should we see them again sometime.
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-- UVA says goodbye today to Paul Jesperson, who made known his intent to transfer out. Flash back to a couple weeks ago when I projected that Malcolm Brogdon's return to the rotation would almost certainly take a huge chunk out of Jesperson's minutes; a transfer is not all that surprising. And Jesperson surely has a better idea than you or I about Brogdon's readiness. We were set to have a full complement of 13 scholarship players next year, but being one short won't kill us until "we can't have nice things" starts to take hold.
The real scholarship logjam is next year's sophomore contingent, which runs seven deep and which Jesperson was not part of. This is kind of a problem. It's one that'll probably sort itself out in some fashion, since there's three seasons before they all graduate, but it's still worth keeping an eye on. There are now three open spots for the year when that group will be seniors (2015-2016) which, if you fill them all up, means you only return six players the next year, plus your recruiting class. As it would be unwise (not to mention awfully damn tough) to take a seven-man class and repeat the cycle, you see the issue. I usually scoff at the idea of a mid-career redshirt for a non-injured, non-just-transferred player, because it's exceedingly rare in football and even more so in hoops, but you can see where such a thing would be useful if we could pull it off. A transfer is the more likely result of that logjam.
At any rate, we do wish Jesperson the best. Dude made some sacrifices and did everything the right way, and the silver lining for him is that the redshirt year he couldn't take will now come in handy.
-- Very interesting potential development today in the suggestion of an ACC Network that would be announced before next football season. Whether that means it would actually start right up broadcasting ACC football in 2013, I'm not sure, and I rather doubt it because it takes a while to get it onto all of the potential carriers. Presumably also they mean a real ACC Network patterned after the BTN and other copycats, and not just a Raycom-like entity calling itself the ACC Network only when it's broadcasting an ACC contest.
The potential benefit to the ACC covers a wide range of possibilities. I doubt that the foreseeable future would see such a network turn into the money tree that the BTN has been. For one thing, Big Ten schools are ginormous and have a much larger potential viewership base. For another, this appears to be in concert with ESPN, which owns ACC broadcast rights from top to bottom. The BTN is in concert with Fox instead, which means the B1G can play the two entities off against each other. Having ESPN running the show simply means having the same entity stretching its own reach, and potentially monopolizing content. How much money would actually flow into ACC coffers is anyone's guess.
However. Consider Florida State and Clemson, which some people seem to think have half a foot in either the Big 12 or SEC. The SEC is out of the question for now and the foreseeable future thanks to the blockading efforts of UF, UGA, and USCe, and the only network in the Big 12 is the Longhorn Network. Which doesn't send a dime anywhere but Austin, Texas. Say what you will but when one conference has a conference network and one has nothing but a special arrangement for the most arrogant school in the conference, the appeal of one vs. the other is plain to see.
Plus, as one of the posters in that thread points out, an ACC Network might not match the BTN but is likely to be considerably better than any SEC Network. An SEC network would never get the premier football matchups, and the SEC, relative to the other power conferences, is a basketball wasteland. And doesn't play lacrosse. An SEC network could broadcast baseball and have some success there....but outside of that and Mississippi State/Kentucky football games, wouldn't have a lot of interesting programming. The ACC network would have ten times the appeal in the winter season, and lacrosse in the spring.
I can't vouch one bit for the past veracity of the Syracuse message board poster that that links to, but the folks there seem to take what he says at face value and the Sabre poster who put it there (which is where I found it) swears the guy's legit. It has very believable vibes, and I'm nothing if not a sucker for believable people telling me everything will be ok in re: the ACC. It'll be interesting to see the reaction when (or, I suppose, if) it becomes official.
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A recruiting board update is necessary.
-- Added DE J.J. Jackson to blue. Not highly recruited at the moment but it seems the UVA coaches are dead serious.
-- Added S Kiy Hester to yellow. Even within the various strata on the recruiting board there are layers of optimism (Connor Strachan, for example, is more of a bluish-green while Bentley Spain is more of a yellowish-green) and Hester is sort of a reddish-yellow. Still, taking the time to visit Charlottesville is a notable indicator of interest.
-- Moved CB Christopher Murphy from yellow to red. Getting too much interest to be higher until he does something like visit UVA.
-- Removed QB Caleb Henderson (UNC) and OT Sam Mustipher (ND) from red.
I see UVa plays Duke today in lacrosse. I have no doubt we'll beat them, because I have years of experience as a Virginia fan to draw on. It's like in 2002 when the basketball team was totally sucking, then had the nerve to beat Duke just to remind you how badly they were underachieving.That's the sort of thing that it really does take years of watching UVA sports to think of. There was only one problem with it: the laxing Hoos found an even more ridiculously Virginia way to let the game play out. Fail at scoring goals all season, then wait until we play the one team we can't beat to score an enormous flood of them, and still lose by three. Absolutely fascinating. Insert the appropriate Anchorman quote here, you know the one. I really think that has to stand close to "beat top-five Florida State and then score five points at North Carolina" in the Stupid Losses Zone.
This was a game of runs, with the pendulum making several swings between delivering and receiving the ass-beating. UVA's 13-9 lead ended up being a rather false hope, as Duke scored 10 of the next 11 goals. Truthfully, the game wasn't as close as the score: UVA was beaten in the shots-on-goal category 35-24, at faceoffs 23-15, total shots 55-40, and cleared only 75% of their opportunities. I'm beginning to think the only way to find out why Duke always brings out the worst in our defense is to kidnap an assistant coach and torture the answers out of him, but then again I've been reading Game of Thrones lately so my ideas might be a little darker than normal.
UVA has now left itself only one thread of hope for making the NCAA tournament: win all of the next three games. That's the only way to earn the.500-or-better record the NCAA requires for at-large teams. And I don't even think that would do it, really. Of course, at this point if you're still thinking NCAA tournament, there's nothing I can say to shoot down your very misplaced optimism except that your efforts might be better spent finding a team with a golden horseshoe jammed up its ass, like Ohio State football.
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That golden horseshoe team certainly isn't UVA baseball, at least not this weekend. UVA dominated the Saturday game behind some ridiculously good pitching from Scott Silverstein, who gave up two hits - one of them of the extremely cheap variety - in seven innings, and struck out nine. I don't trust Silverstein's reconstructed shoulder enough to think that we can always get that kind of performance, but that was one of the better lineups UVA will face or has faced in ACC play. If he can dominate them he can certainly work some magic on the rest of the conference too. Given the reputation Silverstein had coming out of high school, file that one under "what could've been" and repeat the UVA mantra, which as always is: "we can't have nice things."
This is not to say that the rest of the pitching was poor, of course: that GT lineup only scored seven runs in the three games. Brandon Waddell had a nervous-looking start on Friday but then settled down beautifully, and UVA lost 2-1. Truthfully, I think third-base coach Kevin McMullen ran us right out of that one by sending Derek Fisher home from second on a single to left, whereupon he was cut down at the plate.
My usual philosophy on sending runners is that coaches should be hyper-aggressive with two outs, and send all 50/50 or even 40/60 chances (because your chances of scoring if you hold the runner are essentially equal to the batting average of the next hitter) but exercise a great deal of caution with less than two outs. Which was the case with Fisher. Holding a runner on a grounder (which is what the single was) isn't even cautious, it's just smart: a grounder can and will be charged and the outfielder can come up firing. It's different if the OF has to go side-to-side to get the ball, and if he's going glove side then you send him without hesitation, but a grounder straight at him is going to get you nailed. With one out and runners at the corners you have a lot of tools in your toolbox to get that runner home, and Reed Gragnani (the next hitter) is a senior who can be counted on to know the value of a fly ball. Since the score was 2-1 at that time and the rest of the game saw mostly quiet bats, it turned out to be one of the key plays in the loss.
On Sunday....well, GT basically tossed the dice and won, letting the rain finish up their 3-2 win. Not a bad strategy when you know your bullpen is just about cashed. Everyone knew going in that UVA had the deeper pen than GT, which I'm sure played no part whatsoever in the decision not to fit in a doubleheader on Saturday. The point that UVA certainly had the chance not to let in three runs and the chance to score more than two is stipulated to. That said, sometimes you lose a series and you're glad to have pulled one win out of it and you hope that team ends up in the opposite bracket of the ACC tournament. This series left no reason to fear the Jackets should we see them again sometime.
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-- UVA says goodbye today to Paul Jesperson, who made known his intent to transfer out. Flash back to a couple weeks ago when I projected that Malcolm Brogdon's return to the rotation would almost certainly take a huge chunk out of Jesperson's minutes; a transfer is not all that surprising. And Jesperson surely has a better idea than you or I about Brogdon's readiness. We were set to have a full complement of 13 scholarship players next year, but being one short won't kill us until "we can't have nice things" starts to take hold.
The real scholarship logjam is next year's sophomore contingent, which runs seven deep and which Jesperson was not part of. This is kind of a problem. It's one that'll probably sort itself out in some fashion, since there's three seasons before they all graduate, but it's still worth keeping an eye on. There are now three open spots for the year when that group will be seniors (2015-2016) which, if you fill them all up, means you only return six players the next year, plus your recruiting class. As it would be unwise (not to mention awfully damn tough) to take a seven-man class and repeat the cycle, you see the issue. I usually scoff at the idea of a mid-career redshirt for a non-injured, non-just-transferred player, because it's exceedingly rare in football and even more so in hoops, but you can see where such a thing would be useful if we could pull it off. A transfer is the more likely result of that logjam.
At any rate, we do wish Jesperson the best. Dude made some sacrifices and did everything the right way, and the silver lining for him is that the redshirt year he couldn't take will now come in handy.
-- Very interesting potential development today in the suggestion of an ACC Network that would be announced before next football season. Whether that means it would actually start right up broadcasting ACC football in 2013, I'm not sure, and I rather doubt it because it takes a while to get it onto all of the potential carriers. Presumably also they mean a real ACC Network patterned after the BTN and other copycats, and not just a Raycom-like entity calling itself the ACC Network only when it's broadcasting an ACC contest.
The potential benefit to the ACC covers a wide range of possibilities. I doubt that the foreseeable future would see such a network turn into the money tree that the BTN has been. For one thing, Big Ten schools are ginormous and have a much larger potential viewership base. For another, this appears to be in concert with ESPN, which owns ACC broadcast rights from top to bottom. The BTN is in concert with Fox instead, which means the B1G can play the two entities off against each other. Having ESPN running the show simply means having the same entity stretching its own reach, and potentially monopolizing content. How much money would actually flow into ACC coffers is anyone's guess.
However. Consider Florida State and Clemson, which some people seem to think have half a foot in either the Big 12 or SEC. The SEC is out of the question for now and the foreseeable future thanks to the blockading efforts of UF, UGA, and USCe, and the only network in the Big 12 is the Longhorn Network. Which doesn't send a dime anywhere but Austin, Texas. Say what you will but when one conference has a conference network and one has nothing but a special arrangement for the most arrogant school in the conference, the appeal of one vs. the other is plain to see.
Plus, as one of the posters in that thread points out, an ACC Network might not match the BTN but is likely to be considerably better than any SEC Network. An SEC network would never get the premier football matchups, and the SEC, relative to the other power conferences, is a basketball wasteland. And doesn't play lacrosse. An SEC network could broadcast baseball and have some success there....but outside of that and Mississippi State/Kentucky football games, wouldn't have a lot of interesting programming. The ACC network would have ten times the appeal in the winter season, and lacrosse in the spring.
I can't vouch one bit for the past veracity of the Syracuse message board poster that that links to, but the folks there seem to take what he says at face value and the Sabre poster who put it there (which is where I found it) swears the guy's legit. It has very believable vibes, and I'm nothing if not a sucker for believable people telling me everything will be ok in re: the ACC. It'll be interesting to see the reaction when (or, I suppose, if) it becomes official.
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A recruiting board update is necessary.
-- Added DE J.J. Jackson to blue. Not highly recruited at the moment but it seems the UVA coaches are dead serious.
-- Added S Kiy Hester to yellow. Even within the various strata on the recruiting board there are layers of optimism (Connor Strachan, for example, is more of a bluish-green while Bentley Spain is more of a yellowish-green) and Hester is sort of a reddish-yellow. Still, taking the time to visit Charlottesville is a notable indicator of interest.
-- Moved CB Christopher Murphy from yellow to red. Getting too much interest to be higher until he does something like visit UVA.
-- Removed QB Caleb Henderson (UNC) and OT Sam Mustipher (ND) from red.
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
hoops look back, part 1
Even though UVA didn't make the big tournament this year, nor get to the ACC tourney semifinals, I would argue this: any season in which expectations are exceeded is a success. And the Hoos did exactly that. Picked seventh in the ACC in the preseason and given a projected record of 19-12, 9-9 by Ken Pomeroy, UVA surpassed both with a four seed in the ACC tournament and a 21-9 record. It still only resulted in an NIT bid, but I don't hate that. When you've gotten to where the NIT is your floor instead of your ceiling, your program is in the right place. Some might say you shouldn't ever be happy with the NIT, but even Kentucky can't claim to be immune to NIT-dom.
Not forgetting this, either: The Hoos swept both VT and Maryland and beat all three Triangle teams. I'm OK with a season where that happens.
The preseason preview was split into two parts with a bit for each player, so let's mirror that approach today and have a chat about how everyone's year went.
#1 - Jontel Evans
As the team's only scholarship senior, Evans came in with a pretty well-established reputation. This year - on offense particularly - he took just about every piece of that reputation to its extreme. Known as a dicey free-throw shooter who refused to take three-pointers, but who ran the offense better than any other PG on the team and could get to the rim (albeit with sometimes questionable finishing abilities due to an insistence on finishing what he started regardless of the obstacle), Bub took those peaks and valleys and enhanced them all. The bad: Opponents played five feet off of him. If Ole Miss's Marshall Henderson had the greenest light ever (as per LeBron), Jontel had the reddest one. He took two threes all year, both desperation heaves at the end of a shot clock, or actually in the case of the one that went in, the end of a half. From halfcourt. It was reminiscent of his end-of-half shot against Miami a couple years ago that must have brushed a rafter in the gym, so high did it go. The fact that this year's crazyheave actually went in is one of the Jonteliest things to ever happen.
The other bad is that he was a touch turnover-prone, and his free throw shooting was appalling. But his defense was just as we've come to expect. It didn't improve over last year, but then, it didn't have much room to, and the difference between Evans and the other point guards was clear whenever he was off the court. And he definitely had a senior's feel for the offense. His season-high assist total was eight, which he hit three times, and had five games of seven assists as well. Solid stuff for the pace we play.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: We of course wish him well wherever his basketball career takes him. Evans is a likely candidate to carve out an overseas career, at least for a little while. The race to take his place will be interesting to watch. It'll be nice to have a PG whose shot opponents respect, but there'll be times Evans will be missed as well.
#2 - Paul Jesperson
Jesperson's leap from '11-'12 to '12-'13 was cosmic, partly because his freshman season saw him more or less unready for the college game. So it was a terrific thing to see him become a useful player instead of "that guy who was supposed to redshirt and now we know why."
Jesperson started 33 games this year and was a fixture in the starting lineup despite being one-dimensional at times on offense. You know how Tony Bennett loves defense, and Jesperson put forth quite a bit of effort there. His long, 6'6" frame was useful for harassing opposing shooting guards, and his positioning does a good job of making up for the deficit of athleticism he faces as compared to most other shooting guards. The NC State game - the regular season one - was the best exhibit of this. Jesperson didn't score in that game, but he chased Scott Wood around every screen and turned a 44% three-point shooter into a waste of shots.
Jesperson's own three started off the season on a torrid pace, but that slowed down as the season went on. His shot got flat and would leave him for entire games at a time. He only shot 35% from three after ACC play began, though his 4-for-4 showing at Maryland was more than appreciated. Every so often, too, he'd flash the ability to make a move at the rim you'd forgotten that he had. Overall, though, when Jesperson's shot wasn't falling he wasn't much use on offense. When it was, UVA was a scary dangerous team.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: Assuming Malcolm Brogdon is back in the rotation next year, it's Jesperson's minutes that seem most likely to suffer. If and when he does come back, it's hard to see Jesperson starting 30+ games and getting 26 minutes per. He could lose as many as 10 minutes from that. But he can also stave off the slide if he fixes his shot and proves irreplaceable on defense. As Will Sherrill proved, Tony rewards guys who know where they're supposed to be on the court, and Jesperson does.
#4 - Taylor Barnette
Of all the preseason predictions I made, Barnette's was probably the most accurate. In sum, it went something like: Emergency point guard that we'd rather not have to use and fringe rotation guy. Which is exactly what happened.
It turns out Barnette isn't a great point guard, really. Teven Jones was better at running the offense, and Barnette's defense ranged from adequate to major liability. The Boston College game that we lost, BC made a big game-changing run with Barnette in the game that ended as soon as Barnette was pulled.
But. Barnette did have game-changing ability in a good way. Three times, Barnette hit three three-balls in a game, and our average margin of victory in those games was 28. That would be the home games against Clemson and GT and the NIT game against St. John's. He basically was the spark that turned close-ish games into blowouts. He sat out nine games entirely and in many others he got the Tristan Spurlock mid-first-half cameo and nothing else, but you can't say he didn't have a role.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: More of the same, probably. London Perrantes and Devon Hall should provide some tough competition, particularly Perrantes as he'd be a candidate to play some off-ball guard too. And of course, Brogdon will also be in the mix. So Barnette will have to scrap for minutes. But as long as he can be counted on to respond when Tony says "get in there and hit some threes" there'll be a space, even if it's a small one.
#5 - Teven Jones
Kind of an interesting story. I don't have a way to back this up but it felt like Jones never really earned the trust of Tony Bennett over the year. Whatever he did to get suspended for the first game might've had something to do with it. Jones ran the offense passably well and occasionally - particularly in the NIT - hit a clutch three-pointer that would stymie an opponent "haha we're taking advantage of your bench" rally.
But his minutes went down the tubes when the calendar turned. In the nonconference games he played (after returning from suspension and injury) he averaged almost 24 minutes a game. Evans's return to full strength had a lot to do with this, of course, but Jones's minutes plummeted to 8.4 per game after ACC play began, and that's including his 20 minutes and start against UNC in the ACC opener. In six games he played less than five minutes, and picked up two DNPs as well.
Whether that's a function of Tony trusting his senior a lot or his freshman only a little, I can't say - it's probably both. But I don't really have any complaints about the offense with the ball in his hands. He didn't have Jontel's playmaking instincts and usually played it pretty safe, which brought his assist total down. But he was a better shooter than Jontel by a mile, both from the field and at the stripe.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: Will probably have to re-earn his job against Perrantes and Hall. Like I said before: the PG competition will be quite a race. Easily the top storyline of the offseason. And I'm not stupid enough to try and handicap it from here and now.
#10 - Mike Tobey
If it weren't for Justin Anderson, Tobey would easily be the guy whose metamorphosis was most exciting over the course of the season. Early on, he was missing more shots than he had a right to. And I'm no psychologist, but it looked an awful lot like a case of the nerves. He looked tight and afraid to screw up, which almost always leads to screwups. He biffed putbacks and occasionally channeled Assane Sene's turnover hands.
Once he got it figured out, though, the skills for which he was recruited started to really, really blossom. He showed he could hit shots from most anywhere - including behind the arc. He likes the twelve-foot baseline jumper. He shot almost 80% from the line. Tobey missed five games with mono (and probably was feeling the early effects of it during the GT loss in which he was largely ineffective) but once he got back, the lost time wasn't a great hindrance. Having a center that can score from all over is a lot of fun, and his KenPom statistical profile was very similar to the freshman seasons of Kosta Koufos (a 2008 one-and-done at Ohio State) and Brook Lopez.
Defensively, his improvement mirrored his offense. He'll be better when the weight room starts to take effect; right now he's still got a little bit of leftover baby fat from high school. But he did a nice job overall. Didn't foul much and blocked his share of shots. He could stand to improve on his rebounding numbers, but sometimes that's hard with Akil Mitchell grabbing so many; plus, the pack-line isn't conducive to elite rebounding numbers from your center because it encourages the opponent to take long shots.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: Could double his minutes; he averaged 14. UVA's offense is finally showing signs of being multidimensional, and Tobey's going to be an indispensible part of that.
#11 - Evan Nolte
Opposing coaches really hate it when you put a 6'8" three-point shooter out there. Nolte has a really nice stroke, and UVA - with Nolte - has the ability to put a massive backcourt on the floor. It turns out that it's awfully hard to close out on Nolte, which keeps defenders from helping out - or else risks him shooting over the top. That's not unique to Nolte - most mismatch forwards are the same way, it's why I call them mismatch forwards. But UVA, with Jesperson and Joe Harris at 6'6", and some big point guards on the way, can really take advantage of Nolte's height and shooting to open up wide swaths of the floor.
Especially against the bench players that Nolte usually goes against. The weaknesses in his game were apparent as the season rolled on: he's often asked to guard opposing fours, but he's not really a four himself and doesn't have the strength. Nor does he have the quickness to guard the league's best threes. Some wings, yes, but not the best ones. And he doesn't really like to put the ball on the floor and attack. If Nolte improves his handle, which he's got the capability to do, it would add a dimension to his game that would make him nigh-unstoppable by anyone's second string. But as a starter, I don't yet see it. There's a reason he was switched back to the bench in favor of Justin Anderson when Darion Atkins had to be shelved.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: I actually see Nolte as one of the players at the most risk to lose minutes. Anthony Gill and a healthy Atkins will make sure Nolte never has to guard any power forwards, which is a good thing for the overall mix. And Anderson already started eating into Nolte's time at the three. Nolte's minutes got less productive toward the season's end, and he's got to reverse that trend. He could be a 20-minutes-a-game kind of guy with the necessary refinements, but it's also not inconceivable that he could be reduced to a fringe-rotation three-point specialist, depending on how other elements of the rotation shake out.
Not forgetting this, either: The Hoos swept both VT and Maryland and beat all three Triangle teams. I'm OK with a season where that happens.
The preseason preview was split into two parts with a bit for each player, so let's mirror that approach today and have a chat about how everyone's year went.
#1 - Jontel Evans
As the team's only scholarship senior, Evans came in with a pretty well-established reputation. This year - on offense particularly - he took just about every piece of that reputation to its extreme. Known as a dicey free-throw shooter who refused to take three-pointers, but who ran the offense better than any other PG on the team and could get to the rim (albeit with sometimes questionable finishing abilities due to an insistence on finishing what he started regardless of the obstacle), Bub took those peaks and valleys and enhanced them all. The bad: Opponents played five feet off of him. If Ole Miss's Marshall Henderson had the greenest light ever (as per LeBron), Jontel had the reddest one. He took two threes all year, both desperation heaves at the end of a shot clock, or actually in the case of the one that went in, the end of a half. From halfcourt. It was reminiscent of his end-of-half shot against Miami a couple years ago that must have brushed a rafter in the gym, so high did it go. The fact that this year's crazyheave actually went in is one of the Jonteliest things to ever happen.
The other bad is that he was a touch turnover-prone, and his free throw shooting was appalling. But his defense was just as we've come to expect. It didn't improve over last year, but then, it didn't have much room to, and the difference between Evans and the other point guards was clear whenever he was off the court. And he definitely had a senior's feel for the offense. His season-high assist total was eight, which he hit three times, and had five games of seven assists as well. Solid stuff for the pace we play.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: We of course wish him well wherever his basketball career takes him. Evans is a likely candidate to carve out an overseas career, at least for a little while. The race to take his place will be interesting to watch. It'll be nice to have a PG whose shot opponents respect, but there'll be times Evans will be missed as well.
#2 - Paul Jesperson
Jesperson's leap from '11-'12 to '12-'13 was cosmic, partly because his freshman season saw him more or less unready for the college game. So it was a terrific thing to see him become a useful player instead of "that guy who was supposed to redshirt and now we know why."
Jesperson started 33 games this year and was a fixture in the starting lineup despite being one-dimensional at times on offense. You know how Tony Bennett loves defense, and Jesperson put forth quite a bit of effort there. His long, 6'6" frame was useful for harassing opposing shooting guards, and his positioning does a good job of making up for the deficit of athleticism he faces as compared to most other shooting guards. The NC State game - the regular season one - was the best exhibit of this. Jesperson didn't score in that game, but he chased Scott Wood around every screen and turned a 44% three-point shooter into a waste of shots.
Jesperson's own three started off the season on a torrid pace, but that slowed down as the season went on. His shot got flat and would leave him for entire games at a time. He only shot 35% from three after ACC play began, though his 4-for-4 showing at Maryland was more than appreciated. Every so often, too, he'd flash the ability to make a move at the rim you'd forgotten that he had. Overall, though, when Jesperson's shot wasn't falling he wasn't much use on offense. When it was, UVA was a scary dangerous team.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: Assuming Malcolm Brogdon is back in the rotation next year, it's Jesperson's minutes that seem most likely to suffer. If and when he does come back, it's hard to see Jesperson starting 30+ games and getting 26 minutes per. He could lose as many as 10 minutes from that. But he can also stave off the slide if he fixes his shot and proves irreplaceable on defense. As Will Sherrill proved, Tony rewards guys who know where they're supposed to be on the court, and Jesperson does.
#4 - Taylor Barnette
Of all the preseason predictions I made, Barnette's was probably the most accurate. In sum, it went something like: Emergency point guard that we'd rather not have to use and fringe rotation guy. Which is exactly what happened.
It turns out Barnette isn't a great point guard, really. Teven Jones was better at running the offense, and Barnette's defense ranged from adequate to major liability. The Boston College game that we lost, BC made a big game-changing run with Barnette in the game that ended as soon as Barnette was pulled.
But. Barnette did have game-changing ability in a good way. Three times, Barnette hit three three-balls in a game, and our average margin of victory in those games was 28. That would be the home games against Clemson and GT and the NIT game against St. John's. He basically was the spark that turned close-ish games into blowouts. He sat out nine games entirely and in many others he got the Tristan Spurlock mid-first-half cameo and nothing else, but you can't say he didn't have a role.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: More of the same, probably. London Perrantes and Devon Hall should provide some tough competition, particularly Perrantes as he'd be a candidate to play some off-ball guard too. And of course, Brogdon will also be in the mix. So Barnette will have to scrap for minutes. But as long as he can be counted on to respond when Tony says "get in there and hit some threes" there'll be a space, even if it's a small one.
#5 - Teven Jones
Kind of an interesting story. I don't have a way to back this up but it felt like Jones never really earned the trust of Tony Bennett over the year. Whatever he did to get suspended for the first game might've had something to do with it. Jones ran the offense passably well and occasionally - particularly in the NIT - hit a clutch three-pointer that would stymie an opponent "haha we're taking advantage of your bench" rally.
But his minutes went down the tubes when the calendar turned. In the nonconference games he played (after returning from suspension and injury) he averaged almost 24 minutes a game. Evans's return to full strength had a lot to do with this, of course, but Jones's minutes plummeted to 8.4 per game after ACC play began, and that's including his 20 minutes and start against UNC in the ACC opener. In six games he played less than five minutes, and picked up two DNPs as well.
Whether that's a function of Tony trusting his senior a lot or his freshman only a little, I can't say - it's probably both. But I don't really have any complaints about the offense with the ball in his hands. He didn't have Jontel's playmaking instincts and usually played it pretty safe, which brought his assist total down. But he was a better shooter than Jontel by a mile, both from the field and at the stripe.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: Will probably have to re-earn his job against Perrantes and Hall. Like I said before: the PG competition will be quite a race. Easily the top storyline of the offseason. And I'm not stupid enough to try and handicap it from here and now.
#10 - Mike Tobey
If it weren't for Justin Anderson, Tobey would easily be the guy whose metamorphosis was most exciting over the course of the season. Early on, he was missing more shots than he had a right to. And I'm no psychologist, but it looked an awful lot like a case of the nerves. He looked tight and afraid to screw up, which almost always leads to screwups. He biffed putbacks and occasionally channeled Assane Sene's turnover hands.
Once he got it figured out, though, the skills for which he was recruited started to really, really blossom. He showed he could hit shots from most anywhere - including behind the arc. He likes the twelve-foot baseline jumper. He shot almost 80% from the line. Tobey missed five games with mono (and probably was feeling the early effects of it during the GT loss in which he was largely ineffective) but once he got back, the lost time wasn't a great hindrance. Having a center that can score from all over is a lot of fun, and his KenPom statistical profile was very similar to the freshman seasons of Kosta Koufos (a 2008 one-and-done at Ohio State) and Brook Lopez.
Defensively, his improvement mirrored his offense. He'll be better when the weight room starts to take effect; right now he's still got a little bit of leftover baby fat from high school. But he did a nice job overall. Didn't foul much and blocked his share of shots. He could stand to improve on his rebounding numbers, but sometimes that's hard with Akil Mitchell grabbing so many; plus, the pack-line isn't conducive to elite rebounding numbers from your center because it encourages the opponent to take long shots.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: Could double his minutes; he averaged 14. UVA's offense is finally showing signs of being multidimensional, and Tobey's going to be an indispensible part of that.
#11 - Evan Nolte
Opposing coaches really hate it when you put a 6'8" three-point shooter out there. Nolte has a really nice stroke, and UVA - with Nolte - has the ability to put a massive backcourt on the floor. It turns out that it's awfully hard to close out on Nolte, which keeps defenders from helping out - or else risks him shooting over the top. That's not unique to Nolte - most mismatch forwards are the same way, it's why I call them mismatch forwards. But UVA, with Jesperson and Joe Harris at 6'6", and some big point guards on the way, can really take advantage of Nolte's height and shooting to open up wide swaths of the floor.
Especially against the bench players that Nolte usually goes against. The weaknesses in his game were apparent as the season rolled on: he's often asked to guard opposing fours, but he's not really a four himself and doesn't have the strength. Nor does he have the quickness to guard the league's best threes. Some wings, yes, but not the best ones. And he doesn't really like to put the ball on the floor and attack. If Nolte improves his handle, which he's got the capability to do, it would add a dimension to his game that would make him nigh-unstoppable by anyone's second string. But as a starter, I don't yet see it. There's a reason he was switched back to the bench in favor of Justin Anderson when Darion Atkins had to be shelved.
Absurdly early outlook for next year: I actually see Nolte as one of the players at the most risk to lose minutes. Anthony Gill and a healthy Atkins will make sure Nolte never has to guard any power forwards, which is a good thing for the overall mix. And Anderson already started eating into Nolte's time at the three. Nolte's minutes got less productive toward the season's end, and he's got to reverse that trend. He could be a 20-minutes-a-game kind of guy with the necessary refinements, but it's also not inconceivable that he could be reduced to a fringe-rotation three-point specialist, depending on how other elements of the rotation shake out.
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
game preview: Iowa
Date/Time: Wednesday, March 27; 7:00
TV: ESPN2
Record against the Hawkeyes: 0-1
Last meeting: Iowa 73, UVA 60; 3/13/97, Salt Lake City, UT; NCAA tournament 1st round
Last game: UVA 68, SJU 50 (3/24); Iowa 75, SB 63 (3/22)
KenPom:
Tempo:
UVA: 60.8 (#330)
Iowa: 67.5 (#102)
Offense:
UVA: 107.3 (#69)
Iowa: 109.0 (#48)
Defense:
UVA: 88.6 (#13)
Iowa: 89.4 (#20)
Pythag:
UVA: .8768 (#25)
Iowa: .8833 (#23)
Projected lineups:
Virginia:
PG: Jontel Evans (4.4 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 4.9 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (4.8 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 0.9 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (16.4 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.2 apg)
SF: Justin Anderson (7.1 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.3 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (13.3 ppg, 9.0 rpg, 1.5 apg)
Iowa:
PG: Mike Gesell (8.7 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.8 apg)
SG: Roy Devyn Marble (14.8 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 2.9 apg)
SF: Aaron White (13.1 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 1.4 apg)
PF: Melsahn Basabe (7.3 ppg, 5.2 rpg, 0.5 apg)
C: Adam Woodbury (4.8 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 0.6 apg)
Is this heaven? No, it's the NIT. And UVA is really one game away from the NIT's heaven, as it were: Madison Square Garden, which only had Delaware between it and UVA in the early season. Iowa is a much more formidable opponent than Delaware, but UVA is better equipped and more seasoned now. If the Hoos can get to MSG, they'll find a very familiar foe awaiting them.
-- UVA on offense
The good passing and movement that UVA displayed against St. John's will be even more vital here. Iowa has one major weakness on defense: they get absolutely ruined by good point guards. They've allowed two 90-point games this season, and to two of the elite PGs in the country: Trey Burke and Erick Green.
UVA doesn't have a point guard of that caliber, obviously. They'll have to hope that Iowa is equally susceptible to good playmaking from all corners of the court, rather than elite playmaking from the primary ballhandler. Trying otherwise to score on the Hawkeyes has been tough. They're a long, tall squad in a similar way to UVA. Big guards and long forwards that use that advantage to good effect. Melsahn Basabe exemplifies it as a better post defender than his 6'7" height might suggest. Aaron White is a 6'8" quasi-wing type who will probably draw the assignment on Justin Anderson. And Roy Devyn Marble (who uses his middle name to distinguish himself from his father Roy Marble, an Iowa star of old) is a big, long shooting guard.
Marble's defense might be wasted on Paul Jesperson, whose shot has been poor lately. Too flat. Much too flat. Marble may be able to prevent Jesperson from ever getting off a shot, and has a good chance of reaching one he's already let go.
The size that Iowa has is the likely reason why they've been the 9th-best team in the country at defending the three. Opponents are shooting less than 30%, and UVA's three-point shooting of late has been at best adequate and at worst crippling. They'll defend the post well, with two centers combining for about 25 minutes a game, and of course, Basabe.
Also look for plenty of press action. St. John's even tried a token one, which had the clear mark of a team who'd practiced it specifically for UVA.... and only for UVA. Iowa is not VCU, but they're more adept at the press than the St. John's idea of just putting some guys on the other side of halfcourt in a basic press formation and seeing what happens. UVA isn't a disaster against the press any more, but no sure thing either.
-- UVA on defense
UVA must be careful here, mainly not to get into foul trouble. Iowa's backcourt options are limited. It's Roy Devyn Marble or close to nothing, especially with freshman PG Mike Gesell (you may remember him as a guy Tony Bennett recruited pretty hard) limited with a foot-bone thing very similar to what Darion Atkins has going on with his shin. Stress reaction that's not quite a fracture, but could be if one is careless. Gesell missed several games in early March and hasn't been the same at all since returning.
That leaves Marble, essentially the only Hawkeye who can create for himself. This he can do quite well. He's not a great three-point shooter (nobody on Iowa is) but he can get to the rim and draw fouls, post up smaller guards, and at times run the offense as a second point guard. In fact that's what Iowa called on him to do against Stony Brook, and brought Gesell off the bench.
Down low, there are several options. Aaron White draws a ton of fouls as he tends to draw shorter defenders. He can knock down the resulting free throws, as well as the occasional face-up jumper, and he can post up too. Melsahn Basabe has more strength than White, and crashes the offensive boards hard. Both he and White do, actually. And Adam Woodbury is a skilled freshman center whose minutes are somewhat limited, but he was a top recruit and flashes some of that skill from time to time.
UVA will definitely get all it can handle down low. Marble provides the spark from the backcourt. And Iowa, unlike UVA's previous two opponents in the NIT, can rotate in some scoring punch too. Eric May is another big guard who can shoot some, if not create the way Marble can, and Zach McCabe is a sizable forward with some versatility. UVA can't take any possessions off because they're not likely to be bailed out by crap shooting, as has been the case at times the past two rounds.
-- Outlook
I want to win, but I might not leave feeling cheated if I can watch Fran McCaffery completely melt down. McCaffery has the best combination of fiery personality and not-at-all-fiery looks in all of coaching. Bobby Knight looked like a dude who might heave a chair. McCaffery looks like the admissions director, not the basketball coach. Except when he does this.
Anyway, this is a proper test. Iowa could have been dancing in a weaker conference. They went 9-9 in the very deep Big Ten, and not just by feasting on Northwestern and Penn State. They've beaten four tourney teams, including Iowa State. This could go either way, truly; on paper and on the court it's a 50/50 matchup. I have to give UVA the slight edge for playing at home. But no result between a 25-point Iowa win and a 25-point UVA win would surprise me.
Final score: UVA 68, Iowa 66
Thursday, February 28, 2013
game preview: Duke
Date/Time: Thursday, February 28; 9:00
TV: ESPN
Record against the Blue Devils: 48-115
Last meeting: Duke 61, UVA 58; 1/12/12, Charlottesville
Last game: UVA 82, GT 54 (2/24); Duke 89, BC 68 (2/24)
KenPom:
Tempo:
UVA: 60.6 (#338)
Duke: 68.5 (#62)
Offense:
UVA: 111.2 (#31)
Duke: 118.9 (#5)
Defense:
UVA: 88.8 (#21)
Duke: 89.0 (#22)
Pythag:
UVA: .9096 (#17)
Duke: .9511 (#6)
Projected lineups:
Virginia:
PG: Jontel Evans (4.5 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 5.3 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (5.1 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 1.0 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (16.6 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.2 apg)
SF: Justin Anderson (7.0 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 2.3 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (12.6 ppg, 8.7 rpg, 1.5 apg)
Duke:
PG: Quinn Cook (12.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 5.6 apg)
SG: Seth Curry (16.8 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 1.6 apg)
SG: Rasheed Sulaimon (12.4 ppg, 3.4 rpg, 2.2 apg)
PF: Josh Hairston (2.9 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 0.3 apg)
C: Mason Plumlee (17.5 ppg, 10.7 rpg, 2.0 apg)
Prime time, man. Prime time. On the eve of March - college basketball's holy month - the big fish comes to town. It's such a big game that I polished off a scotch before writing this post, the better to make it a good one. Scotch brings out the wordsmith in me. UVA's postseason aspirations don't exactly hinge on Thursday's showdown with Duke, but a win would do wonders for their positioning. At ITA this week I wrote about the ACC tournament, specifically how it would be really nice to finally have some success there, and beating Duke would put the Hoos in a nearly unbeatable position for what is turning out to be a very important race for third seed. Not only that, but it just might give Jerry Palm** a reason to reconsider his position.
-- UVA on offense
The first thing that popped off the page, in looking over Duke's defensive numbers, is this: they don't let you shoot many threes, and the ones you do shoot rarely go in. This seems odd; you'd think that going up against a guy like Mason Plumlee, you would want to stay out of the paint. Well, the actual truth is this: Plumlee cleans the boards like a fiend, but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of defense, as well as good clean shotblocking, he's kind of average. Well, better than average, but not transcendently great. The truth? We've faced better paint defenders in the past.
Tony Bennett's game plan against Georgia Tech kept Daniel Miller guessing all day long, and it resulted in him being out of position to affect a shot, and zero shot blocks to boot. Something similar will likely be run against Plumlee. Plumlee is much more athletic than Miller, so it's not necessarily guaranteed to work, but in this regard you can consider the GT game a nice little warmup for gameplanning against Plumlee.
Really, the reason teams don't shoot many threes on Duke is because their guards are quicker than almost anyone else's, and don't need to sag way off in order to prevent a drive to the lane. And they can close out well if caught slightly out of position. But UVA will almost always enjoy a huge size advantage at at least one backcourt position. Seth Curry is 6'2", Tyler Thornton is 6'1". Rasheed Sulaimon is 6'4" and will probably draw Joe Harris, lest Harris post someone up the way he repeatedly did against GT. Coach K surely watched the GT tape and is not stupid. However, Paul Jesperson and Justin Anderson are 6'6". K has started Josh Hairston lately, but with Anderson almost certain to start again, he might go with Thornton.
This would be easier for the Dookies if they had Ryan Kelly, but they don't. So UVA will almost always enjoy a matchup advantage. It might force them to play 6'8" Amile Jefferson much more than they'd like (maybe even start him) as he's really the only one they have with the physical makeup not to let an Evan Nolte or a Joe Harris let it fly over his head.
However, the quickness of Duke's guards is not to be overlooked. All three of them; Cook, Curry, and Sulaimon. They're very disruptive and if you try to get fancy they can make you regret it. UVA doesn't want to get in a late shot-clock situation because Jontel Evans doesn't have the ability to consistently get past Duke's guards and make a play with time running out. Mfon Udofia is one thing. Duke is quite another. That means UVA is going to have to walk a very fine line between patience and a sense of urgency. In other words, this is going to be a game where UVA does something and you wonder why they can't do that all the time.... and then there'll be possessions that make you wonder how we ever managed a bucket at all. Make the former happen more often than the latter and we're in good shape.
-- UVA on defense
Obviously, this is a major challenge. Duke has one of the most efficient and prolific offenses in the nation. Under no circumstances, for example, can Mason Plumlee be allowed to catch the ball close to the rim. He shoots 75% at the rim and 35% away from it. Plumlee is damn near automatic when allowed to work. Whoever's assigned to him, be it Akil Mitchell or Mike Tobey, can't let him just catch the ball in the paint because then it's over; and then, of course, it's double-team time. Josh Hairston isn't terrible or anything, but Plumlee represents Duke's only real scoring threat down low. He's all they've needed, really.
Duke is also one of the best three-point shooting teams in the country, with Cook, Curry, and Sulaimon all hitting on better than 40%. Tyler Thornton isn't chopped liver in this department either. This team can hurt you from deep. Bad.
Seth Curry, of course, is a guy who's dangerous from anywhere he feels like shooting it. One thing that makes Duke so tough to guard is that Curry's effectiveness doesn't go down as he gets farther away from the rim. He loves to drive then pull up after he's created his space, and he can catch and shoot both inside and outside the arc. Quinn Cook prefers to get to the rim if he can, which he does very well, and he's developed into a nice facilitator. Rasheed Sulaimon, meanwhile, has gotten more productive as the ACC season has worn on. Partly this is because he's taken over for Ryan Kelly as the fourth scorer, but a good freshman will start to figure out the league by mid-February and that's exactly what Sulaimon has done.
Duke's only real weakness is their depth. There's no real PG backup for Cook and there's definitely no backup at center for Plumlee. They average 33, 34 minutes for a reason. The rotation is thin, with four players - Cook, Curry, Plumlee, and Sulaimon - getting as much time as K dares, and the fifth spot being a revolving door that'll be based largely on matchups. Duke doesn't foul much (SURPRISE) or else they'd be in a lot of trouble.
The bottom line: Try and shut down Plumlee and hope their three-balling goes cold. The cold hard numbers:
Maryland: Plumlee 2-for-7, Duke .316 from deep
Miami: Plumlee 5-for-15, Duke .176 from deep
NC State: Plumlee 7-for-10, Duke .300 from deep
Those are their three losses. Only NC State let Plumlee shoot well. Seth Curry was an incredible 0-for-10 against Miami, but getting him some buckets would've only made the score respectable, not given them a win. You've got to force their game outside and hope they're having a bad night.
-- Outlook
Alright, well. Maybe it's the matchups. Maybe it's playing at home in front of a sold-out crowd. Maybe it's the scotch. Maybe it's the long streak of playing well - even in losses - that's vaulted UVA's offense up near KenPom's top 30 in the country, which has got to be their highest point ever under Tony Bennett. But I feel good about this. Call me crazy all you like. I know Duke is Duke, and I'll tell you what else: Karl Hess hasn't reffed an ACC game all week, so he's probably gonna be in the house. Just a guess. Another guess: UVA will surprise a few pundits with their offensive output and knock off big bad Duke in front of an ecstatic crowd.
Final score: UVA 70, Duke 66
**Palm's pathological insistence in not considering UVA to even be a tournament contender is one of the most laughable stories of the bracketology season. He had a podcast recently in which he haughtily summed up UVA fans' arguments for the Hoos' tourney-worthiness as "those losses don't matter." Please. I refuse to believe out of all the angry emails he got, not one of them mentioned, say, Wisconsin. But really I told you that story to tell you this one: isn't it kind of enjoyable that we Virginia fans are developing a reputation for being a prickly bunch that will flood your Twittishfeed if you cross us? Last year Mike Scott was left out of a Wooden candidate list (I can't remember whose, Andy Katz's or someone's) and the Mike Scott = Chuck Norris thing was born on the comments section. And then another ESPN writer did the same thing and the original guy tweeted him with something along the lines of "look out dude, Virginia fans are coming." Palm got so much hate mail from UVA fans that he advertised his podcast with "why Virginia fans hate me" and he's not even the first bracketologist to feel the pain; Lunardi, in the past, has also felt the need to go "ok Virginia fans, here is why I dissed your team." The difference was, Lunardi ended up being right, and Palm will end up with egg on his face. At any rate, keep it up, folks.
Tuesday, February 12, 2013
game preview: Virginia Tech
Date/Time: Tuesday, February 12; 7:00
TV: ESPNUVA
Record against the Hokies: 83-53
Last meeting: UVA 74, VT 58; 1/24/13, Blacksburg
Last game: UVA 80, Md. 69 (2/10); GT 64, VT 54 (2/9)
KenPom:
Tempo:
UVA: 60.6 (#340)
VT: 68.1 (#93)
Offense:
UVA: 107.3 (#59)
VT: 104.3 (#105)
Defense:
UVA: 86.5 (#11)
VT: 103.4 (#232)
Pythag:
UVA: .9006 (#19)
VT: .5215 (#158)
Projected lineups:
Virginia:
PG: Jontel Evans (3.3 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 4.9 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (4.6 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 1.2 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (15.9 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.3 apg)
SF: Justin Anderson (6.9 ppg, 3.2 rpg, 2.2 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (12.6 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 1.5 apg)
Virginia Tech:
PG: Erick Green (25.3 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 4.0 apg)
SG: Robert Brown (9.2 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 2.5 apg)
SF: Jarell Eddie (13.3 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 1.3 apg)
PF: C.J. Barksdale (4.6 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 0.6 apg)
PF: Cadarian Raines (7.1 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 0.5 apg)
Leg two of the Tech series is tonight, after leg one went swimmingly down in Blacksburg. The game stats made it seem like the game was in Charlottesville, not Blacksburg; Tech looked like the rattled team with more than twice as many turnovers as UVA and not even a third as many assists. UVA looked perfectly at home in Cassell Coliseum. Now they'll actually be at home, and coming in on a mini-roll after taking a meat cleaver to Clemson and bouncing Maryland in Maryland's gym. UVA needs this one to keep the pressure on Duke from below and UNC and NC State from above. On the flip side, the UVA loss sent VT into a season-ruining death spiral; they haven't won since, and will be looking at this game as a postseason of sorts since their chances at any kind of a postseason tournament are just about shot.
-- UVA on offense
Evan Nolte wasn't bad in the starting lineup, but replacing him with Justin Anderson seems to have paid dividends with both players. Bringing Nolte off the bench has spread out the shooting threats so that there's rarely a time when a .400 three-point shooter isn't on the floor. Plus, not many teams have someone on the bench that can easily guard a mismatch forward like Nolte. And Anderson's slashing is a new dimension in the starting lineup that's opened up the floor for Joe Harris and Paul Jesperson and made for a nice combo with Akil Mitchell at times as well.
Last time we covered this matchup, UVA was 10th of 12 in conference-only O-rating. Now they're fourth. Their worst offensive performance since then was not the GT loss; it was actually the win over NC State, with 0.92 points per possession in that game. If that's your worst in a stretch, that's pretty good. UVA's torrid three-point shooting has a lot to do with that, but don't fall into the trap of thinking that UVA is a team that relies on the three-pointer. In fact, UVA is 242nd in the country in the ratio of three-pointers to total field goal attempts.
Where the Hoos are currently most limited is in getting to the line, but that might change for tonight as VT is starting to be one of the fouliest teams in the country.** Getting Marshall Wood back into the rotation has only made that worse. Most recently, Wood picked up two fouls in six minutes against Maryland and then three in 16 against Georgia Tech. If at any time he's guarding Harris or Anderson, it's time to switch into attack mode and get to the line. Both Cadarian Raines and C.J. Barksdale can also be counted on to hack and slash; in truth, Tech doesn't have a single frontcourt player (other than maybe Jarell Eddie, who's more of a wing really) that doesn't make a habit of putting opponents on the charity stripe.
Tech also is one of the utter worst teams in the country at getting steals and forcing turnovers. UVA's six-TO performance last time out wasn't a fluke, since the Hoos take care of the ball quite well and Tech doesn't go and get it. Playing at home, I don't see much reason for this trend to change.
In conference play, Tech's D-rating has been a beautiful 109.2. If that were their overall rating they'd be tied for 307th in the country. They don't rebound well, they foul like crazy, and they don't get steals. I know UVA fans are worried about the team going cold off of this nice hot streak we've got going, but this isn't the team that can make it happen. Even a cold-shooting UVA will find enough ways to score to pull out a win, and if the hot streak keeps going for another game, it'll be ugly for the Hokies.
**Astute readers may notice I said the opposite in the last preview. Back then their rotation was thinner and included a higher proportion of non-fouly players. Their backcourt is mostly non-aggressive and doesn't foul much, particularly Green, Brown, and Eddie. Expanding the rotation to include Wood plus a little more of Joey Van Zegeren has changed the dynamic, and in conference play the Hokies have been fouling like madmen.
-- UVA on defense
Everybody knows about Erick Green. The funny thing really is that Jontel Evans has more assists (per game) than Green has. That's not because he's selfish, it's because his teammates mostly suck. Tony Bennett said in the coaches' teleconference yesterday that they wouldn't focus just on Green, the Hokies have other weapons blah blah blah. Popguns, mostly.
That said, Bennett wasn't just coachspeaking. One thing Bennett has definitely shown the ability to do is shut down a team with one dynamic scorer and a bunch of schmos. Easy: you focus on the schmos and let the scorer get his. Terrell Stoglin used to have big days against UVA, and the Hoos still kept on spanking Maryland. Green had 35 points in the last game. Which, by the way, I was flabbergasted to hear when the announcers put it on the screen. His teammates were junk. Jarell Eddie shot 2-for-11. Cadarian Raines took three shots. Those are Tech's other two ACC-level players.
I guess I'd include Barksdale in that two and give Tech four in total, but he's not real assertive. Barksdale's not a bad shooter but tends to disappear for stretches. Mainly what you do against Tech is exactly what Bennett did last time: deny Jarell Eddie and you deny Green's main passing option. The Hoos will let Robert Brown shoot all he likes. He was 0-for-3 last time out (and had four fouls besides) and is not a threat.
Even though Tech generally takes care of the ball well (which is to say that Erick Green takes care of the ball well) there's not much they do that UVA can't stop. The Hoos will be content to be occasionally embarrassed by Green, who gets his points no matter what. UVA simply will not devote extra resources to defending him except as a changeup tactic. They'll isolate him from his teammates and force him to try and score 50 or else lose. I wouldn't put it past him to do that, but usually when you don't expect much out of his teammates, you're not disappointed. Just force Eddie to shoot inside the arc and defend the paint effectively and you can't lose to VT.
-- Outlook
If there's two things that scare me, it's these: UVA tends to do badly when I talk confidently about the game. And the team that previously lost has an advantage in the second game because they're more likely to make adjustments. The short time between games may also be a problem, but UVA looked pretty good the last time they had a two-day turnaround (a Saturday against BC after Thursday against VT) and truth is I'm willing to trade prep time for VT in exchange for prep time against UNC, especially since UNC is laser-focused on their trip to Cameron. I have to like UVA's chances to keep the hot streak going.
Final score: UVA 67, VT 52
Saturday, February 2, 2013
game preview: Georgia Tech
Date/Time: Sunday, February 3; 3:00
TV: ESPNUVA
Record against the Jackets: 34-38
Last meeting: UVA 70, GT 38; 1/19/12, Atlanta
Last game: UVA 58, NCSt 55 (1/29); Clem. 63, GT 60 (1/29)
KenPom:
Tempo:
UVA: 59.8 (#344)
GT: 66.7 (#165)
Offense:
UVA: 102.4 (#132)
GT: 96.4 (#224)
Defense:
UVA: 85.5 (#7)
GT: 87.0 (#17)
Pythag:
UVA: .8651 (#32)
GT: .7419 (#79)
Projected lineups:
Virginia:
PG: Jontel Evans (3.2 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 4.5 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (4.3 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 1.3 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (15.2 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.4 apg)
PF: Evan Nolte (7.0 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 1.2 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (12.4 ppg, 9.0 rpg, 1.8 apg)
Georgia Tech:
PG: Mfon Udofia (9.4 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 2.9 apg)
SG: Chris Bolden (6.4 ppg, 1.6 rpg, 1.3 apg)
SF: Marcus Georges-Hunt (10.5 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 1.4 apg)
PF: Robert Carter (10.1 ppg, 6.7 rpg, 0.9 apg)
C: Daniel Miller (7.9 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 2.1 apg)
UVA opened itself up to the dangerous world of possibilities this week with that win over NC State. A three-team top level of the ACC became a four-teamer, and the Hoos are positioning themselves nicely for a first-round bye in the ACC tourney. But there isn't any margin for error, and that's nicely highlighted by this Sunday's game against GT. The Jackets are kind of sneaky-decent with a very good defense and no offense whatsoever, although it hasn't shown up in the win-loss column.
-- UVA on offense
One thing that makes this game dangerous - besides that it's on the road, which is always tough - is that UVA's schedule so far has been filled with the ACC's bottom of the barrel on defense. FSU, BC, VT, NC State, etc. - they range from mediocre to crap. The ACC has four of KenPom's national top 20 defenses (UVA is one, of course) and we haven't seen any of the other three, up til now. The good news is that GT's performance in the conference hasn't been as good.
The number is probably a little inflated, in fact. (Or deflated. Whatever.) GT's best defensive stat that goes into D-rating is their free-throw defense, which they obviously have as much control over as I do the lineups. It's not all smoke and mirrors, of course. Center Daniel Miller is a top-notch shot-blocker and freshman forward Robert Carter (a five-star type) isn't bad himself. Miller against Mike Tobey could be interesting; we'll see if Miller is as good away from the basket, and Tobey's ambidextrousness could help nullify the advantage Miller brings as well. But at any rate, Miller's presence, when he's in the game, will deter guys like Jontel Evans from driving the lane and could do a number on UVA's attacking-the-basket game in general.
Actually, that's what Georgia Tech largely seeks to stop as a team, and they do a good job of it; they're 18th in the country at defending two-pointers. They don't pack it in like UVA, but they'll work to keep you in front and then try and and funnel you to Miller when you entertain thoughts of driving. When Miller comes out, though, they don't have another shot-blocking center and it changes the dynamic considerably.
Plus, they've got good rebounding size to keep you off the offensive glass. It's a good team effort; Miller, obviously, can rebound some, and Carter is big and very athletic and is the Jackets' top glass-cleaner. They lose nothing in this department when Kammeon Holsey enters the game.
UVA should work two strategies here. With Miller in the game, they'll simply have to be very patient and work for their shots. That's obviously something they have no problem doing. Tech's subs, however, can be foul-prone. Holsey and Julian Royal (in his cameos) can be encouraged to hack a shooter, and GT has a number of fringe-rotation types - Pierre Jordan, the Poole brothers - who don't see a lot of time but pick up cheapie fouls when they do. The Hoos should turn up the aggressiveness a couple notches when the subs are in.
-- UVA on defense
This could be fun. Last year the Hoos almost doubled up the Jackets on the scoreboard, holding them to their lowest point total ever in the shot clock era. Of course, parking opponents in the 30s has almost gotten routine these days, but so it goes. GT hasn't gotten that much better on offense since last year and it's costing them games; they have yet to top one point per possession in any of their ACC games.
Horrendous guard play is the reason. It's always been said the ACC is a guard's league, and GT fits that mold because they're 1-6 and their guards suck. Mfon Udofia's always been kind of a crap point guard, but he's elevated his play this season to halfway decent. His shooting has been better this year, but the ACC season is dragging him down to his accustomed levels; he's been getting to the rim, except that the much better defenses in the ACC are keeping his shots out of the hoop now. His three-point shooting is OK too, at .343, but the problem for GT is that's the best they've got.
Udofia's backups suck, though. Pierre Jordan has been displaced by Solomon Poole - Jordan hasn't played except for a zero-minute showing against Wake - and Poole has only been a tiny marginal improvement. There's little help at shooting guard either. Chris Bolden knocked Brandon Reed out of the starting lineup, but they're both interchangeably bad. Below-average three-point shooting and far too much reliance on two-point jumpers characterizes both their games. Paul Jesperson should appreciate the respite after chasing Scott Wood through five screens a minute on Tuesday. In fact, Jesperson being in the game largely for his defense, Tony Bennett might look at this matchup and feel free to go with Joe Harris at the two at times with Justin Anderson at the three.
Anderson's athleticism would be a great thing for helping out on Tech's forwards, who provide nearly all of their scoring punch. Wing Marcus Georges-Hunt and forward Robert Carter, both freshmen, are GT's top two scorers, and placing third is Kammeon Holsey - off the bench. This is another game where Bennett will likely make liberal use of the low-post double team, so as to try and force the ball back into the hands of GT's awful backcourt.
The 32-point blowout last year was chalked up largely to GT having a bad day, but I wonder. To score on this nasty, suffocating pack-line defense that we've developed here, you need some guards that can break it down. The pack-line defenders are supposed to stray outside the line generally only to defend a ballhandler; GT is the kind of team where you might not even bother doing that. If their guards want to pop off a bunch of jump shots, let them. GT is a decent offensive rebounding team, but if they get a long one, who cares - the way they're at their most dangerous is working hard down low with low-post offense and putbacks. What better matchup for the pack-line defense?
-- Outlook
I'm not worried about GT's offense and I'm only sort of worried about their defense. What worries me is the road atmosphere. Truthfully, we should've all been rooting for the Falcons to get to the Super Bowl because then nobody in the city would be paying attention to this game and we could play a nice little scrimmage in front of an empty gym. Road games have had a way of putting lids on the rim, though; I know we got some nasty good three-point shooters that actually do put a scare into opponents (the ones that are paying attention anyway - the Tobacco Road types tend to think nobody on our team is any good) but you know how that can go cold sometimes. At any rate, we don't even have to score that much because GT isn't going to.
Final score: UVA 54, GT 46
Thursday, January 24, 2013
game preview: Virginia Tech
Date/Time: Thursday, January 24; 8:00
TV: ACC Network, ESPN3
Record against the Hokies: 81-52
Last matchup: UVA 61, VT 59; 2/21/12, Blacksburg
Last game: UVA 56, FSU 36 (1/19); VT 66, WF 65 (1/19)
KenPom:
Tempo:
UVA: 59.7 (#344)
VT: 70.1 (#48)
Offense:
UVA: 102.0 (#132)
VT: 105.7 (#79)
Defense:
UVA: 85.9 (#8)
VT: 104.2 (#252)
Pythag:
UVA: .8540 (#39)
VT: .5370 (#151)
Projected lineups:
Virginia:
PG: Jontel Evans (3.0 ppg, 2.3 rpg, 3.8 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (4.5 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 1.2 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (15.2 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.4 apg)
PF: Evan Nolte (6.4 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 1.3 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (12.3 ppg, 9.1 rpg, 1.9 apg)
Virginia Tech:
PG: Erick Green (24.6 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 4.4 apg)
SG: Robert Brown (10.2 ppg, 2.8 rpg, 2.6 apg)
SF: Jarell Eddie (14.5 ppg, 6.6 rpg, 1.4 apg)
F: C.J. Barksdale (5.5 ppg, 4.8 rpg, 0.7 apg)
F: Cadarian Raines (6.8 ppg, 6.9 rpg, 0.6 apg)
The Hoos righted the ship last weekend against Florida State, or so I'd like to believe. If they're going to have any kind of success this season, though, they'll have to figure out how to win on the road, where so far ACC play has been very unkind. There wouldn't be a better place to get that figured out than Blacksburg. Virginia Tech sports the same 2-2 record as UVA, but they've largely played the dregs of the conference; the best team they've faced has been Maryland, and their wins have been of the skin-of-teeth variety. Nevertheless, any team with Erick Green is going to be dangerous.
-- UVA on offense
KenPom-wise, there aren't many bigger pillowfights in the ACC than this side of the matchup. In conference-only play, UVA's offense rates 10th of 12, and VT's defense is bottom-of-the-barrel bad. Tech isn't a great rebounding team, and doesn't create turnovers. Only Erick Green is a threat in that regard, and not a big one. If turnovers again plague the Hoos and their point guards, they'll have only themselves to blame.
Tech also allows teams to shoot a large number of threes; though their opponents' make percentage is pretty low, the high number of attempts still allows extra points to creep in. If VT wants to let UVA shoot threes, UVA will probably be happy to oblige, so it'd be nice if we could get the same kind of performance we saw in the first half against FSU thank you very much.
VT is a thin team - their rotation will mainly feature seven players - so it's to their credit that they do a decent job of staying out of foul trouble. Green is a good defender, and Jontel Evans will find it tough to find the rim, so ball movement will be important. Tech can be broken down this way. They still have some of Seth Greenberg's habits to break and have that good shot-blocking athleticism, but don't always rotate and help quickly. UVA shouldn't be afraid to shoot the open three; Tony Bennett has talked of having only three players that have the green light (likely Joe Harris, Paul Jesperson, and Evan Nolte) but some of those yellow-light guys, like Justin Anderson, will at some point find themselves with an opportunity; they should bomb away as well.
There may also be some good second-chance opportunities, a good time for Akil Mitchell to shine. Mitchell will easily be the best rebounder on the court, and if his ankle allows it, Bennett might do well to allow Mitchell to crash the offensive glass instead of ordering him quickly back on defense like usual. There will be some points to be found this way; VT's starting frontcourt of Raines, Eddie, and Barksdale are okay rebounders and bench center Joey van Zegeren isn't aggressive on the boards.
Ultimately, the Hoos' fate will be in their own hands. Tech doesn't defend well enough to stop most teams. UVA can be stubbornly bad at offense when it tries, though. Shoot passably well and don't turn the ball over and they'll earn enough points to win.
-- UVA on defense
Any discussion of Tech's offense starts and ends with Erick Green. There's no getting around it; the guy is legitimately good and probably a lock for first team all-ACC at the end of the year. Green takes care of the ball, he distributes it well, he's an extremely-high-usage player who can get to the rim with ease. He draws a bazillion fouls and shoots from the line exceedingly well. If there's a hole in his game it's that he's merely a respectable three-point shooter. He's been held under 20 points just once this season - in Tech's debacle against BYU - and he could easily get his 20 against UVA, too.
The best way to go is to try and limit the rest of the team. Green loves to drive and kick to his big, shooting wing Jarell Eddie, who can be dangerous behind the arc. C.J. Barksdale is probably underused and is a good scorer down low, and Cadarian Raines must be kept off the glass; he is one of the country's better offensive rebounders. Nor can you feel comfortable putting most of these guys on the line; most are solid free-throw shooters.
UVA should try to funnel the ball to Robert Brown, the weakest link in Tech's starting lineup. Brown scores 10 a game and is Tech's third-leading scorer, but is the very definition of a volume scorer with just a .343 shooting percentage, and .234 behind the arc.
The good news for UVA is that Tech's weapons are potent, but they're limited in number. Brown, I don't consider much of a scorer. VT's sixth man is Marquis Rankin, in the game for his defense, most definitely not his offense. Joey van Zegeren is the only other player likely to get much time off the bench. The Hokies will sub in Will Johnston if they want someone to knock down a quick three; Johnston has taken 29 shots this year and 27 have been threes. But his minutes have diminished of late and they've been inconsistently given all season.
In the end, Green will probably have his points. UVA is a tough defense to drive on, yes, but Green is the best player they've faced all season. The game will almost certainly hinge on whether the others get their points as well. If UVA can limit Tech's complementary players, they'll have a clear upper hand.
-- Outlook
Tech still looks a lot like the team that Seth Greenberg ran, but with better discipline. Somewhat. They like to score quickly, though - they have a fast tempo, and since they don't hardly ever get steals, the tempo isn't borne of a transition game. It's from a desire to hurry things up in the halfcourt. Tony Bennett prefers you don't do that. Whoever can impose their tempo is very, very likely to win this game.
I expect a close one, though. Both games last year were, and this is on the road and likely won't be much different. Tech gets up for these games and will give us a fight. I still think the Hoos have legitimate tournament hopes, and since I think that, I really have no choice but to step back out on the limb and call for a win. We're not going to have an easy time convincing a committee otherwise.
Final score: UVA 59, VT 55
Friday, January 18, 2013
game preview: Florida State
Date/Time: Saturday, January 19; 4:00
TV: ACC Net., ESPN3
Record against the Noles: 17-19
Last meeting: FSU 63, UVA 60; 3/1/12, Charlottesville
Last game: Clem. 59, UVA 44 (1/12), UNC 77, FSU 72 (1/12)
KenPom:
Tempo:
UVA: 60.4 (#341)
FSU: 69.6 (#63)
Offense:
UVA: 102.2 (#130)
FSU: 108.2 (#46)
Defense:
UVA: 87.7 (#18)
FSU: 96.0 (#112)
Pythag:
UVA: .8270 (#52)
FSU: .7731 (#71)
Projected lineups:
Virginia:
PG: Jontel Evans (2.6 ppg, 1.9 rpg, 3.3 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (4.3 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 1.3 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (15.1 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.4 apg)
PF: Evan Nolte (6.7 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 1.3 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (12.3 ppg, 9.3 rpg, 1.8 apg)
Florida State:
PG: Montay Brandon (5.5 ppg, 2.2 rpg, 1.8 apg)
SG: Terry Whisnant (7.4 ppg, 1.6 rpg, 0.8 apg)
G: Michael Snaer (15.1 ppg, 5.1 rpg, 2.6 apg)
F: Okaro White (13.4 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 0.7 apg)
C: Kiel Turpin (3.9 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 0.5 apg)
A week off in the ACC basketball season is as good as a bye week, and it came at a good time for the Hoos. They suffered a couple unsettling losses, but the season is by no means lost, and there's still time to right the ship and work their way into the tournament. They'd do well to seize the opportunity, since there won't be another one this year. The rest of the season is two games a week. FSU is coming off a similar off week, so the advantage against the opponent will be limited, but it's an opportunity nonetheless.
If there were any way of knowing which members of this team will be togged up and ready to go, that'd make things easier on me, but Tony Bennett is quietly developing a reputation for stinginess when it comes to injury information. At least Florida State will be in the same predicament as I am, trying to figure out what exactly to prepare for. Darion Atkins probably won't play, if I read the tea leaves right. Akil Mitchell - I guess probably will. Chances are that someone else stepped into the Hoos' secret ankle-breaking machine this week, but I guess we'll see. I'm writing this with the assumption that Atkins is unavailable, and that Evan Nolte will start in his place, but I'm not a mind-reader and I don't know what Bennett is thinking. The man is inscrutable.
-- UVA on offense
This is where the last two games have been lost. The shooting's gone cold and the point guard play against Clemson (that's code for "Jontel Evans") was atrocious. Evans has been made aware of the need to "take care of the ball," yes. The problem, I suspect, is that he was already aware of that need and played over-the-edge cautiously as a result. And that in turn was disastrous.
We're dangerously close to the territory that we've become familiar with over the past few years of basketball previews. That territory essentially is that it doesn't matter what I write if a few shots don't fall. Nothing matters if you can't get people to respect your jump shots, and right now, there isn't much reason to respect UVA's. That, naturally, means Joe Harris, Evan Nolte, Paul Jesperson. The need is even more paramount with one of UVA's post weapons sidelined. Akil Mitchell is the only Hoo that's played consistently well on offense in the past couple games, but he could be neutralized if FSU can key in on him as the only post threat on the floor.
They have ways of making it happen, too. The Noles have no fewer than three seven-footers on the roster, two of which exist in the rotation. Kiel Turpin starts at center, and 7'3" Boris Bojanovsky gets about as many minutes as Turpin. That's not that much, fortunately; FSU will go for long stretches without either on the floor, but both, as you'd expect, are excellent shot-blockers. Another factor here is forward Okaro White, who isn't quite Bernard James but plays an aggressive brand of defense that's led to 23 blocked shots this year and also to fouling out of three games. Ultimately, though, FSU as a team blocks almost 14% of opponent shots; they're 25th in the country in that regard.
It would be nice if the Hoos can stretch the floor and nullify the likely advantage the Noles will have in the paint, because otherwise we're asking Mitchell to do the work of three. An occasional dropped-in jump shot from Mike Tobey, who isn't shy about taking them, would help here. Failing that, UVA might look to try and get White and Terrence Shannon into foul trouble, as both are prone to it. Shannon averages more than five fouls per 40 minutes, which is Jeff Allen territory.
There will be an extra onus on Evans and Teven Jones, as well: FSU's monstrous point guards. Backup Devin Bookert is tall enough at 6'3"; their starter, who Evans will have to deal with, is 6'7" Montay Brandon. I'm sure I've never written a game preview for a team with a 6'7" point guard. You'd think this guy would be all over the top of every steals list in the world, but in fact he's got just two all season; still, I worry that just his sheer size will complicate things for Evans.
Overall, FSU's defense has fallen off sharply from last year, when they were one of the nation's elite. That's true no longer, but they're still respectable. The only thing they do badly, for whatever reason, is rebound; they're 304th in the country in defensive rebounding percentage, but since we've (likely) lost our second-best offensive rebounder and Tony Bennett prefers not to crash the offensive glass, there's probably not much we can do about that. Just make it moot, I guess, by hitting shots.
-- UVA on defense
Where FSU's defense has slipped, their offense has taken up the slack. The main threat: three-point shooting. Florida State's percentage as a team is .391, which is good for 17th in the country. They've got four players hitting on better than 40%, and in volume sufficient enough to be worrisome: Michael Snaer, Okaro White, Devin Bookert, and Terry Whisnant.
Snaer is FSU's go-to guy, with White not that far behind. Snaer is kind of a volume scorer inside the arc, shooting less than 40% from two, but he's a versatile guy who draws a ton of fouls and not to be taken lightly. White is relatively low-usage for a team's second-leading scorer, but usage rate includes turnovers, and White takes care of the ball very well, especially for a forward. These two are giving FSU a potent scoring punch that is dangerous from most anywhere on the court.
Terrance Shannon can also score - strictly down low, he lacks White's versatility - but he'll also be one to contend with. But FSU's frontcourt is otherwise thin on scoring options, something of a blessing for our thin front line. Neither Kiel Turpin nor Boris Bojanovsky play enough minutes to do anything more than chip in here and there. And the entire frontcourt, White included, has a very low assist rate - in other words, once the ball goes in, it tends not to come out.
At point, the Seminoles rely on a pair of freshman. Montay Brandon starts, Devin Bookert comes off the bench, but they split the minutes about evenly. If not for that I might suggest that Bookert's superior play comes from playing against bench players himself. Perhaps it does, but at any rate, there's almost nothing on the stat sheet that Brandon does better. His assist rate is barely half his turnover rate (though Bookert also turns the ball over too much.) Bookert has been the superior three-point shooter, hitting on more than half his attempts, and Brandon is an atrocious free-throw shooter. The only place where Brandon is better is two-point shooting percentage, and small wonder at that; Brandon probably posts everyone up who tries to guard him. It wouldn't surprise me, though, if at some point this season there's a change of the guard here.
The rest of the Seminole backcourt consists of complementary pieces to the scoring of Snaer and White. Terry Whisnant is a deadly shooter and hasn't missed a free throw all year. (I await your actions, gods of the jinx.) Aaron Thomas is a sound player for the most part, except for his miserable three-point shooting. (If not for his 4-for-22 performance this year, FSU would be another 10 or so places higher in the ranking, moving them into the top ten, easily.) Ian Miller has been limited by a foot injury this year (amazing - it doesn't only happen to us) and has given way in the scoring department somewhat to Snaer and White and various others, but he's a guy who doesn't do anything badly, either.
To take advantage of FSU on this end of the floor, UVA needs to mercilessly hound the Seminoles' freshman points, who've been known to be free and easy with the ball. Their frontcourt, particularly Bojanovsky and Shannon, can also be turnover-prone. The Hoos must beware that FSU doesn't go on a three-point binge, which can change the flow of the game in a very bad way. With a thin frontcourt, they'll need to also stay out of foul trouble; hard to do, because the Noles draw fouls very well. UVA has defended better teams before, so it's not like this is an insurmountable task, but three-point shooting teams have a way of bailing themselves out of bad situations.
-- Outlook
Perhaps our best hope is the youthful inconsistency that dogs all teams that rely so heavily on underclassmen. That, and the friendly confines where the game will be played. Like UVA, FSU has lost to some bad teams this year; South Alabama, Mercer, and Auburn show up as the Seminole equivalent of UVA's CAA blemishes. Common opponents are no use as a comparison: FSU beat Clemson at Clemson and lost to UNC at home.
I have a hard time predicting a win, though. Maybe I'm snakebit by watching the offense perform the last two times out. This is truly an anything-can-happen kind of game, what with the week off and the plethora of freshmen that'll take the court for both sides and the inconsistent results both of these teams have put on their resume so far. I don't have a great feeling about it, though. If we do lose, as predicted, it means I'm a genius and I told you so; if we win, you can just chalk it up to me trying to shake off a jinx, OK?
Final score: FSU 69, UVA 59
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
game preview: Wisconsin
Date/Time: Wednesday, November 28; 7:00
TV: ESPN2
Record against the Badgers: 1-1
Last meeting: UW 66, UVA 56; 11/21/98, Fairbanks, AK
Last game: UVA 80, UNT 64 (11/20); UW 77, Ark. 70 (11/24)
KenPom breakdown:
Tempo:
UVA: 60.2 (#345)
UW: 61.4 (#340)
Offense:
UVA: 103.7 (#103)
UW: 114.5 (#9)
Defense:
UVA: 91.0 (#27)
UW: 90.0 (#21)
Pythag:
UVA: .7919 (#54)
UW: .9222 (#10)
Projected starting lineups:
Virginia:
PG: Jontel Evans (0.0 ppg, 1.0 rpg, 0.0 apg)
SG: Paul Jesperson (4.5 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 2.5 apg)
SF: Joe Harris (15.0 ppg, 4.5 rpg, 1.8 apg)
PF: Akil Mitchell (11.7 ppg, 9.3 rpg, 1.5 apg)
PF: Darion Atkins (6.8 ppg, 4.0 rpg, 0.7 apg)
Wisconsin:
PG: George Marshall (7.3 ppg, 1.8 rpg, 1.5 apg)
SG: Ben Brust (11.8 ppg, 8.5 rpg, 2.2 apg)
SF: Ryan Evans (10.5 ppg, 7.0 rpg, 2.2 apg)
PF: Mike Bruesewitz (6.2 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 1.3 apg)
C: Jared Berggren (15.2 ppg, 7.2 rpg, 1.3 apg)
The ACC/B1G Challenge is one of the best parts of basketball season, so it's no surprise Jim Delany is doing his damndest to ruin that, too. Lord knows what the future of this excellent mini-tournament is, but for now at least, we can still enjoy a traditional ACC team, in the ACC, playing a traditional Big Ten one, in the way God intended.
As a team that needs to work its way up to the bubble, let alone into the tournament, UVA faces what you could call a must-win in Madison. It's up for debate whether UVA would have made the NCAA tourney last year without a huge win over eventual-three-seed Michigan. On the road, against one of the many formidable teams the Big Ten offers, we have a similar opportunity, but a much tougher one.
-- UVA on offense
Though he's only seen 13.3 minutes a game, Mike Tobey might well get a start and some serious minutes against Wisconsin. That's because the number one challenge UVA's offense faces is the likelihood of seeing at least one tree on the court at all times. Center Jared Berggren is one of those matchup boogeymen who, on the defense end, is averaging two and a half blocks a game. Four of his fifteen blocks were against Arkansas, so we're not talking about someone who just beats up on tiny teams from the Southland Conference. Berggren is six-foot-ten, legit, and will spend a lot of time on the court occupying space in the middle and making it very difficult for the Hoos to score inside.
The other really big guy Wisconsin has is Frank Kaminsky, off the bench at 6'11". Wisconsin lists him as a forward, though, and he's started two games alongside Berggren to give the Badgers two tall guys inside. Kaminsky played a very limited role last year as a freshman, which is only being slowly expanded (only 12 minutes a game) so despite his height he's not a major obstacle.
System-wise, UVA will be facing something very familiar: stifling, clogging, intended to limit shots ... this is no surprise, as Tony Bennett once worked under Bo Ryan at Wisconsin as a holdover from his dad's staff. Ryan used a lot of Dick Bennett's principles, and so does Tony. The question is how well Wisconsin will execute that system; Grantland broke down their game against Florida and pointed out a number of defensive breakdowns, coming to the conclusion that they miss Josh Gasser (their starting point guard, out for the season with a torn ACL) more than you might guess. The problem is that we don't have Florida's athleticism to take advantage. And since then, Wisconsin has successfully shut down much of their opposition, holding three teams under 50 points.
So it's more likely than not that UVA will find the going tough. The interior will only be available in fits and starts, so the shooting has to be there. If the Hoos can force switches, it may be that Wisconsin's help defense breaks down for some backdoor stuff as it did against Florida, but Ryan is one of the country's better coaches so it's a safer bet that UVA will find the going as tough as they try to make it on everyone else.
-- UVA on defense
Yeah, we're going to have to start with Berggren again. Berggren sports an astounding O-rating of 139.9. He's a terrific free-throw shooter, and if you don't pay attention, he'll shoot threes too. Even with Tobey on the court, UVA will likely have no answer for Berggren on defense other than to collapse aggressively and force him to return the ball to the outside. Even that might not work.
The other two main offensive threats are shooting guard Ben Brust, and freshman forward Sam Dekker, who comes off the bench. Brust is a smallish guard with a deadly three point shot; Dekker can also knock 'em down, and is shooting .532 overall. The fourth Badger scorer in double digits is Ryan Evans, but his O-rating is a measly 89.9, which is to say he's probably hurting more than he's helping. Evans has always been a volume scorer, and is the kind of player who shoots threes and shouldn't.
Where UVA will have its biggest advantage in the game is at the point guard matchup. Jontel Evans - yes, he'll play - will find some fresh meat in redshirt freshman George Marshall, who is much less of a participant in the offense than a point guard normally is. If Evans can hound Marshall into a few turnovers, or even just into losing a little confidence, Wisconsin will be forced to make Brust handle the ball more, where he's not as comfortable.
The second advantage: Size. Even though Berggren exists, UVA will otherwise have a slight size advantage, which will be more useful on this end than the other. Wisconsin, for the most part, lacks players in the mid-big range from 6'7"-6'9", with only sixth-man Dekker fitting that bill. The 6'6" Jesperson guarding 6'1" Brust is one of those mismatches, and Brust is not athletic enough to run waterbug circles around Pauly J. With a lengthy lineup on the court that might include Akil Mitchell, Darion Atkins, or Evan Nolte, the Hoos have a chance to frustrate Wisconsin with size and the pack-line.
However, with sharpshooters like Brust and Dekker running around, UVA must be sure not to allow themselves to be sucked in too deep. Wisconsin forces you to pick your poison between Berggren and their shooters, and playing too hard on one will let the other run amok. That's a tricky balancing act. Wisconsin forces you to try and win individual matchups, and with a guy like Berggren, they will have an ace in the hole before they even start.
-- Outlook
UVA has a few avenues it can use to engineer the upset, namely Evans's defense, and perhaps, offensive combinations, like Evans playing with some of these very talented freshman, that Wisconsin can't have scouted because they haven't happened. But we're up against a much more established version of our own program. Look five years into UVA's future and you just might see present-day Wisconsin. And while defense is Wisconsin's calling card, they can excel on the offensive end.
Naturally, the joke is that the game will probably end up 35-33, given the tempo-choking paces both these teams are known for. Not falling in a hole early is vital for both teams, obviously. KenPom gives UVA about a 15% chance of winning, which I think is about right. It wouldn't be an earth-rattling upset, but the Hoos have an uphill climb.
Final score: UW 56, UVA 51
********************************************************
Stuff went down today, and I meant to have a section right here to blab about it, but stuff got so big that it's post-worthy all by itself. Tomorrow, then. Coaching staff upheavals and conference upheavals all to be included.
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