game preview: Hampton

Date/Time: Thursday, March 17; 3:10

TV: truTV

Record against the Pirates: 7-0

Last meeting: UVA 69, HU 40; 11/26/13, Charlottesville

Last game: UNC 61, UVA 57 (3/12); HU 81, SC St. 69 (3/12)

KenPom:

Tempo:
UVA: 61.4 (#351)
HU: 72.2 (#44)

Offense:
UVA: 118.4 (#9)
HU: 100.0 (#244)

Defense:
UVA: 91.9 (#4)
HU: 104.8 (#192)

Pythag:
UVA: .9483 (#2)
HU: .3663 (#220)

Projected lineups:

Virginia:

PG: London Perrantes (11.0 ppg, 3.0 rpg, 4.4 apg)
SG: Malcolm Brogdon (18.7 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 2.8 apg)
SG: Devon Hall (4.5 ppg, 2.5 rpg, 1.8 apg)
PF: Isaiah Wilkins (4.6 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 1.4 apg)
PF: Anthony Gill (13.3 ppg, 6.1 rpg, 0.6 apg)

Hampton:

PG: Reginald Johnson (18.3 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 4.1 apg)
SG: Lawrence Cooks (8.0 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 1.5 apg)
SG: Brian Darden (13.2 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 1.9 apg)
SF: Quinton Chievous (17.0 ppg, 11.0 rpg, 2.1 apg)
PF: Dionte Adams (5.2 ppg, 5.8 rpg, 0.6 apg)

Last chance.  This is the best senior class for UVA hoops in quite a while.  Three different players in it have won ACC honors of some kind - Player of the Year, DPOY, 6th Man, you name it.  The cruel reality of the NCAA tournament is that hundreds of seniors will end their college careers with a loss, and only a tiny handful can say otherwise.  Whether Brogdon, Gill, Tobey, Nolte, and Kirven can avoid the usual fate of seniors remains to be seen, but they're writing the last piece of their legacy regardless.

It's not just the careers of five seniors, though, that are wrapping up.  This is also the last page of the First Book of Tony in the UVA basketball bible.  These guys - Brogdon in particular, way back in August of 2010 - made their commitment very early in the Tony Bennett era.  We're still carrying over from the initial rise to the top.  (And yes, with ACC banners in the ceiling and being ranked at times #1 in the AP poll and in KenPom, it's fair to say UVA has been at the very top of the basketball world.)  This is the final chapter.  When this tourney is over, whether after one, two, or three weeks, the next time the sun rises on UVA basketball it'll be the same author, but a new book.  Hopefully it's more "Harry saves the day and gets rid of Voldemort for now" and less "holy shit, they killed Ned."

-- UVA on offense

Hampton, on the surface, is a respectable defensive team - the stat that really drags down their defensive efficiency is "free throw defense."  I maintain that's not entirely out of one's control - fouling other team's guards will generally result in higher free throw percentages than fouling their bigs - but Hampton's guards aren't very foul-prone.  Their bigs are; maybe they foul lane drivers a lot.  Regardless, Hampton has played solid defense all year long, to just go by the efficiency stats.

Against MEAC competition, that is.  Against bigger fish, their tempo has worked against them and they've been flattened.  Colorado scored 95 in 75 possessions.  SMU rolled up 105 points in just 69 possessions, which is more than 1.5 points per.

Hampton's lineup being essentially a four-guard setup just about all the time, opposing big men tend to have a field day on them, even in losses.  The best comparison is probably Colorado's Josh Scott, one of the Pac-12's best centers and scorer of 21 points and 8 rebounds against Hampton.  UVA has made no secret of their intent to feed the post early and often, and Anthony Gill should be about that productive.

Surprisingly for an up-tempo team, Hampton doesn't pressure a lot on defense, so UVA will have room to work.  Malcolm Brogdon and Devon Hall will both tower over whoever guards them, and outweigh them by 20-30 pounds, too.  Hampton does good work on the boards at both ends, but with the height advantage UVA has at any position you like, there'll be second-chance points, too.  Execute as per usual and the scoreboard will light up.

-- UVA on defense

The Pirates want to push on offense, so one thing that will limit those second chances for UVA is a likely extra emphasis on getting back - more so than usual even for Tony Bennett.  Some teams - like, some we know real well - will pass on a good shot in order to look for a great one.  Hampton just takes what's there and then crashes the offensive glass, hard.  They have three players in the top 300 in offensive rebounding, per KenPom's figuring.

For the most part, Hampton's starting guards are volume scorers.  Brian Darden is a low-percentage, high-volume shooter whose efficiency numbers are saved mainly by his almost impeccable free-throw shooting.  Reginald Johnson can get to the rim fairly well and gets fouled all the time, but he's a senior whose career three-point shooting is under 30%.  Doesn't stop him from shooting - he's launched 173 of them this year.

Hampton's biggest offensive threat - besides their propensity to try and beat you down the court - is the interior games of their biggishes, Quinton Chievous and Dionte Adams.  Chievous gets some putbacks, shoots 63% from two, and mainly eschews the jumpers - though he will at times shoot a three and very, very occasionally make one.  He's much more of a threat down low - but you can save a lot of points by fouling him, because he misses more free throws than he makes.  Hampton's biggest guy is 6'8", 250 Jervon Pressley, who's a shot-blocker but a liability on offense.

Conventional wisdom says you beat UVA by shooting threes, as aptly demonstrated by UVA's 1-3 stretch in January where the winning opponents (VT, GT, FSU) combined to make more than they missed, and UVA's only win (Miami) couldn't buy one.  Hampton cannot shoot threes.

-- Outlook

After the last couple years, in which both Coastal Carolina and Belmont put a scare on the Hoos and threatened to list them among the all-time tournament upsets, I ought to be highly cautious.  It's hard, though, when the opposing offense is so badly geared to succeed against one of the nation's best defenses.  One day, somewhere, a 16 seed will beat a 1, but there's no point ever trying to predict it.

Final score: UVA 82, HU 63

a look around

We have a slight pause between the regular season and postseason, so it's time to take stock of how things are going in UVA's major sports.

Basketball, obviously, is pretty much the way it's been since Joe Harris knocked on Tony Bennett's front door a couple years ago.  The team could literally take a collective dump at center court on Thursday and then stagger off the court smashed on Wild Turkey, and they'd still be a three seed at the barest of minimums.  Since theydo actually plan on trying to win a basketball game (against either Clemson or Georgia Tech), the only drama left when it comes to tournament seeding is: 1 or 2?

Right now they're Joe Lunardi's third #1.  (And in a bracket that sets them up on a potential crash course with Buddy Hield, which would be excellent theater.)  That said, Michigan State and Xavier are strong candidates to take that 1 seed with strong tourney runs - and let's face it, MSU has to be considered the massive favorite in the B1G tourney just because of Izzo and their evil vampire nature.  (Come to think of it, I would consider them the massive favorite in the NCAA, too, without a powerhouse team in the bracket to apply the stake to the heart.)  UVA would be at risk of dropping to a 2 seed if they didn't make it to the ACC championship game on Saturday - but would be close to a lock for a 1 if they did.

Attention must be paid to Malcolm Brogdon, opening up a new door in ACC history with the never-before-seen feat of winning ACC POY and DPOY in the same year.  The two awards are clearly linked to each other, though, because the conference's two leading scorers are Tobacco Roadies.  In other words, Brogdon isn't POY without being DPOY.  The interesting thing is that the POY vote wasn't all that close, and his defensive stats don't really stand out.  He's not a machine for either blocks or steals, which is usually how you win DPOY.  You have to actually pay attention to UVA games to know Brogdon's value on defense - which is to say, UVA has become must-see TV for ACC journalists.  Quite likely, they noticed how Brandon Ingram stopped lighting up the scoreboard when Brogdon was assigned to him.

The ACC tournament sets up well for UVA.  The other side of the bracket has the conference's top three offenses (UNC, Duke, Notre Dame); the only top team in the conference that UVA didn't beat (Duke) didn't earn a double bye and needs to take their thin lineup through a gauntlet.  That said, it's a shame Louisville isn't involved - it'd be tougher to get through, but man, six teams like the ACC has at the top, plus some danger mice like Clemson and VT, would make for an ACC tourney for the ages.  Or really, just the way things should be every year.

Speaking of Louisville, though - are we liking this new tradition of going out on Senior Day and bombing some highly-ranked but temporarily hapless opponent back to the Stone Age with Dick Vitale in attendance?**  And capping it with a three-pointer from a senior walk-on causing the roof to blow off the place? Senior Days don't get better than that.  And I've been sticking up for Mike Tobey all year - I think he gets slapped with expectations and standards that are different from everyone else's, and unfairly criticized as a result - and it was therefore doubly awesome to see him own every square inch of the interior.  And since Thomas Rogers's cherry-on-top three against Syracuse two years ago is still my favorite UVA basketball moment of all time, watching the rerun starring Caid Kirven was like hearing a favorite song on the radio that the DJ never plays.  I could watch that show over and over.

**Don't underestimate the presence of Vitale.  First of all, I don't give a shit what anyone says, I like the guy, a lot.  And second, on the same day that Duke and Carolina were playing at Cameron, ESPN put UVA in the prime-time slot and sent Dickie V to Charlottesville.  UVA-Louisville trumped Duke-UNC.  How about that?

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March 10 is approaching quickly enough that you might read this afterwards.  It's significant in this context for one thing: six years ago, it was the day that Mike London picked up his first two commitments of his first full recruiting class.  That would be David Dean and Clifton Richardson.  Bronco Mendenhall is unlikely to beat that pace, which, of course, is fine.  Mendenhall has really cranked up the offer cannon, and hardly a day goes by without a new one going out.  He's already held two junior days, both of which were highly attended.

I don't think that all these offers are actually, like, offers.  Bronco's not going to be one to tell you you have an offer when really you don't, but he's got to get out front of the relevance train, and there are ways to let a guy claim an offer while making sure he knows he's got to continue to earn it.  There's a feeling-out process going on.  An offer that goes out might be to see if the interest is mutual, or to keep UVA in the game while Bronco continues to evaluate.  Or a combination of the two.

Meanwhile, the feeling-out process is both ways.  There's clearly interest in what Bronco is putting together, but no prospect could ever be faulted for doing his homework.  Mike London was more familiar to everyone locally.  Nearly all his 2011 class was from Virginia or Maryland, and he was already a somewhat known quantity to the recruits he was talking to.  Now we have guys who either were not hearing from UVA before, or had been but under a totally different regime.  It's encouraging that the combined junior day attendance (between the two that've been held so far) was around 50.  Should we be surprised that the process is taking a little bit of time to ramp up?  Not remotely.

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And finally, our beloved spring sports....are showing the rust something fierce.  The baseball team is already loaded down with long-term injuries just a couple weeks into the season, and the bullpen has blown a few leads.  And the lacrosse team....pfff.

It's interesting, actually, that a lot of the reaction to the loss to High Point was not "Virginia is really losing their dominance" but "The blue bloods are really losing their dominance."  I think that's a little bit of a confirmation bias thing.  Most people want there to be more parity in lacrosse, and many are rooting for the "blue-bloods" to lose their hegemony even if they're a fan of a blue-blood.  They just don't want it to be their blue-blood.  And parity in the game is slowly increasing.

But it's really coming more at the expense of the middle tier than the top.  ACC teams are having a fairly tough time this year, and Hopkins has been vexing their fans for a while now, same way UVA has.  But that's nothing compared to how the older middle-tier teams are looking.  Teams like Georgetown, Delaware, St. John's, UMass - formerly tough wins under any circumstance, and now complete pushovers.  Sure, it's not a good sign for lacrosse royalty that teams like Cornell and UVA are no longer powerhouses, but the real brunt of the power shift has been felt further down.

Which means that UVA's struggles - some bad losses and some ugly wins - are more about UVA than the tide of change.  Because let's face it: If Dom Starsia is gently steered toward retirement, which he probably should be if the season continues the way it started, you're nuts if you think the job would have any trouble attracting qualified candidates.

And if you think a 9-4 baseball team is any reason for panic, you learned nothing last year.

basketball season preview, part 3

Time to round out the players portion of the season preview.  Tomorrow, we move into the very interesting nonconference schedule, and then finally, next week, the ACC itself.  48 hours, man.  48 hours.

#32 - London Perrantes - Jr. PG

Now entering his third year as the unquestioned starter at point guard, Perrantes's sophomore year efficiency stats are a bit interesting.  Compare:

Perrantes:

3pt%: .316
2pt%: .394
FT%: .778
ARate: 26.5
TORate: 20.3

Olivier Hanlan:

3pt%: .353
2pt%: .513
FT%: .759
ARate: 29.1
TORate: 15.0

Hanlan was Boston College's do-it-all star, the league's top point guard last year and a draft pick of the Utah Jazz after his junior year.  There's no doubt who was the better player.  But Perrantes finished with an O-rating of 105.0; Hanlan, 107.4.  Very little difference.

It goes to show two things: one, I don't know anything about what goes into a player's O-rating, though I'm rashly assuming that crazy things like shooting and assists and turnovers are involved.  And two, whatever is in the secret sauce, it rates Perrantes's contributions to the offense pretty highly.

Perrantes has a quality to his play that you can spot even if you don't know you're spotting it.  That's what helped drive a narrative last year that was barely borne out on the stat sheet - that Perrantes asserted himself more, shot more, and picked up the scoring pace to help UVA's offense cope with the loss of Justin Anderson.  He didn't do much of that, actually, not so's you'd notice if all you did was peruse stat sheets.  But it looked like he did, and perception is reality.

So far, the Cali-cool image he projects has been a perfect fit with Tony's methodical approach to offense.  There's an ever-so-slight backwards lean that he sometimes projects in pictures of him making the opening pass of the play setup.  Tony hasn't minded him setting an offensive pace that uses all 35 seconds of the shot clock.  But he will now, because that 31st second is a doozy.  With a tad bit more urgency required on the offensive end, Perrantes will have to adjust.  Move a little quicker.  Maybe save some time on the front end by not always walking the ball up the court like a stroll through the gardens.  The adaptability of Perrantes's game will be challenged this year, and because of the way he can project on the flow of the offense, how he responds will set the tone.

Oh, and it'd be cool if he could improve his shooting a little this year, too.  /every critique of every point guard ever.

#33 - Jack Salt - rFr. C

UVa's New Zealand import will get to take the court this year after a redshirt year spent bulking up and getting used to the pace of American basketball.  Salt added 15 pounds, which is bad news for opponents because every report we've ever seen says he likes cracking skulls.

Also, literally every story I've read about him this year - and there are a lot because a yet-to-be-unwrapped 6'11 Kiwi is a curiosity worth finding out about - mentions that he sets brutal screens.  It seems random.  I don't know what to make of this.  It could be bad news in disguise - if he were playing Bad Boys defense with eight nasty streaks or was a sudden scoring revelation, they'd write about that instead.  But it could be secretly really good news - because part of the reason Will Sherrill became a regular player was his diligence in setting screens.

The safest bet is that Mike Tobey is still a very skilled player, much more experienced, and going to take up 95% of the minutes that call for a true center.  It might seem that Salt and Jarred Reuter are competing for the last of the big-man minutes, but I doubt that because Reuter could easily be on the court at the same time as Tobey; Salt never will.  I think whatever meaningful minutes Salt gets will be in cases where Tobey's in foul trouble and the opponent has trotted out a true center of their own.

I also think that even though he won't be seen much, there's major cult-hero potential here.  If he's as powerfully physical as all the reports say, somebody is either going to get whacked on a perfectly legal screen, or have a shot ruthlessly rejected after Salt roots himself into place in the post, and people will notice.  What I'm hoping for is a future where Salt and Reuter are both patrolling the middle like a couple of roughneck bastards and everyone just hates them.  For this year, it'd be cool if we got a few glimpses of that.

#51 - Darius Thompson - rSo. SG

Here's redshirt number two from last year, another Christmas present to open on November 13.  With Malcolm Brogdon in charge, the chances that Thompson breaks into the starting lineup are zilch.  But like Anthony Gill before him, Thompson is a potential really big deal.

Possibly the most athletic player on the team, Thompson brings a slashing, driving threat that's been a little lacking in Tony's tenure.  Truth is, in his year at Tennessee he was a lousy shooter.  Two or three, it didn't matter, he couldn't hit it if it was a jump shot.  But he also took 71% of his shots at the rim....where he also was a lousy shooter at just .369.  And all that was two years ago.  If those numbers improve, and you ought to believe they will to at least some extent, Thompson has the chance to be a tremendous bench scorer and a Sixth Man of the Year candidate.

Thompson will probably be asked to play the point some, where he'd give opponents a completely different look from Perrantes.  Perrantes is smallish, conservative on defense, and more likely to shoot a jumper than drive.  Thompson will try to use his excellent length and athleticism to jump passing lanes, and look to drive on offense.  Justin Anderson was a tremendously important player because his athleticism scared opponents and forced them to give the rest of the team room to operate.  Thompson can look to partly fill those shoes this year.

#1 - Austin Nichols - Jr. PF
#2 - Justice Bartley - Fr. SG
#24 - Caid Kirven - Sr. PF
#25 - Mamadi Diakite - Fr. SF
#34 - Jeff Jones - Jr. SF

Here's the end of the bench - the walk-ons and redshirts.  UVA will have the most talented non-playing players in the country.  Kirven and Jones are familiar sights at the end of blowouts and do an admirable job of keeping comical scores comical.  Bartley brings a fair amount of talent; he turned down a scholarship at UNLV (that due to his late appearance on the recruiting scene would've had to wait til his sophomore year) in order to study business at UVA.

And of course, the redshirts.  Nichols is coming off a season where he was one of the top ten shot blockers in the country (efficiency stats) and a starter at Memphis - possibly the top prize of the transfer circuit this summer.  Diakite was planning on playing a prep year, but UVA convinced him to essentially prep under Tony Bennett instead.  By some accounts he's the second-best athlete on the team and UVA is redshirting him just because they can.  They'll stay in the shadows for a year and then help cushion the blow of losing four rotation seniors after this season.