Virginia basketball defeats Campbell 65-56

Virginia men’s basketball started the season with a new head coach and a slew of new recruits, as well as a lot of questions for the new year. We’ll start by diving into the positives and negatives that can be gleaned from the Cavaliers’ 65-56 win over Campbell in the season opener on Wednesday night.

Plus

Every coach remembers their first win, and head coach Ron Sanchez (I admit it’s still hard to write this) will be happy to start with a win. This was Campbell’s brave team. The fact that they were projected to finish 13th in the 14-team Coastal Athletic Association simply proves that head coaches are too busy to worry about preseason rankings. The Camels have tremendous height for a short program with five players taller than 6-foot-8. The team transitioned well from defense to offense and showed they could throw the deep ball as well as anyone against Virginia: They went 11/29, or 38%, against the Sanchez Park Line. Campbell had a strong performance, hitting his first three threes.

Plus

Jacob Kofi, a freshman forward from Seattle, Washington, made the debut of a lifetime. He scored a game-high 16 points on 7/8 shooting. He made his first five shots of the Hoo game, went 2/3 from beyond the arc, grabbed six rebounds, had a block and a steal (which he converted for Virginia’s only fast-break points of the night). to the basket and attack the ring. He is a keeper.

Plus

Not to be outdone, freshman Ishan Sharma showed that all the hype surrounding his shooting was not exaggerated. It took Sharma just 15 seconds (!) from his first check-in to record his first three goals for Virginia. In his debut, he went 2/3 from behind the line and had a smooth shot after a quick release.

Minus

Duke transfer TJ Power’s first five minutes were pretty solid. He made a beautiful no-look pass to a rolling Blake Buchanan and then smoothly buried a 3-pointer. Then Kofi and Sharma took over – Kofi scored 10 points on 4/4 shooting and Sharma 2/2 from deep – and Power was relatively anonymous, much like the guy who averaged just 6 minutes per game for the Blues. Devils.”

Plus

Blake Buchanan, as befits a guy who spent the offseason training with the legendary Mike Curtis, looks much bigger and stronger than the young, often subdued youngster we saw last year. BB drove aggressively to the rim all night and grabbed a game-high seven rebounds. What really stood out was his demise. He had five assists and showed a level of familiarity with Kofi playing the two-man big man game midway through the season. He’s still an opportunist at the free throw line – 4/9 on the night – but it’s encouraging that he actually managed to make those nine free throws.

Minus

Anyone holding out hope that this team will play faster is in for a season of disappointment. The players played extremely cautiously—their only fast-break points came on Kofi’s steal and flush—and there were still plenty of possessions that went deep into the shot clock. While most, including Virginia reporters, assumed that sophomore transfer Dai Dai Ames would become the de facto point guard (following the departure of Jalen Worley), it was Andrew Rohde who took over the position.

Minus

This brings us to point guard play in general. Redshirt freshman Christian Bliss did not dress. Ames was largely anonymous and struggled to defend himself to stay in front of his man. He only had 10 minutes and for the most part it didn’t matter. It was a tight game as Campbell continued to hang around, but late in the game, after Thane Murray and Rohde had moved 1/2 off the line, Ames calmly saved both of his attempts from the charity stripe to ice the game. Rohde was competent, but it was not his natural position. He has great vision, as evidenced by his five assists, but he also had four turnovers.

Plus

It was a tough first half for the Virginia Pack Line. Campbell looked good from beyond the arc in the first half as they went 6-for-13 from deep. They also found plenty of space in the paint. The Cavalier defense was much stronger in the second half and Campbell had to resort to threes as 10 of their first 14 shots were from deep. While Campbell was throwing jalopies, Virginia opened up an 11-point lead, forcing Campbell to chase the rest of the game.

Minus

Announcer Mac McCarthy: “If you can get the offense to take a contested deuce, that’s a win in my opinion.” He talked about Campbell and their struggles at the rim and on the wing in the second half. He could have been referring to Isaac McKneely, who buried his first three-point attempt. McKneely made three more buckets; everyone was fierce, everyone was inside the arc. He made them because he’s really good, but a steady diet of long twos, the most ineffective shot in basketball, will lead to ugly basketball. It was nice to see McNealy hunting for his shot, and apparently his “aggression” has been a point of focus this entire offseason. Virginia will have more success this year if McNeely shoots more threes than long twos.

Minus

Video review is becoming increasingly intrusive. New to ACC play this year is the requirement that all three judges review the video in two different pairs of two. While I applaud the idea of ”getting it right” in principle, this setup takes too much time.

Plus

With 7:38 left in the game, the Cavaliers committed their first shot clock violation. 75 seconds later Player D committed a second shooting violation. Virginia’s defense improved in the second half and they committed seven of their eleven turnovers after the break.

What’s next: Virginia will host Coppin State next Monday, November 11th. Game time is 7:00 pm and the game is available on ACC Network Extra.

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