Tracking a Transfer: Jacob Groves

We move now into Part 3 of my offseason spotlight on incoming transfers, Jacob Groves from Oklahoma. Previously, I’ve done Dante Harris and Jordan Minor and will now focus on what we might expect to see from the 6’9″ stretch PF. As part of a member of the Big 12, Groves played against some of the best competition in the country on a nightly basis, which is unique to him compared to any of our other incoming transfers. There was no lack of highly talented opponents to choose from, and I watched all I could find before narrowing it down to the standard four to spotlight and dive into. However, also unlike any of the other incoming transfers, Groves lost his starting spot for the Sooners in early February and never reclaimed it, seeing a reduced role while coming off of the bench after a string of games where he struggled offensively. During the stretch preceding that decision he averaged just under 4 ppg (and averaged just under 7 ppg for the season). His role ranged from go-to sniper/offensive option, to decoy starter, to sixth man, to rotational player, back to sixth man who can be a bucket over the season’s progression, and rarely have I seen a player whose performance seemed so highly variable, both able to thrive and struggle against very high-quality competition.

So, what should we expect to see from Jacob Groves, what is he bringing, how will he likely be utilized and how will he translate to what we do? I pulled clips from four games: @ Villanova early in the season prior to conference play, vs. #9 Arkansas and vs. #6 Texas early in conference play, and then @ #2 Kansas prior to his benching but as his minutes started to take a hit.

First A Word About Oklahoma

Oklahoma finished 5-13 in their conference, tied for dead last with Texas Tech, but they went through the wringer; facing 14 ranked opponents including 6 ranked inside of the top 10 at the time they faced them and the #2 team in the country (Kansas and Alabama at the time) on two separate occasions. They were very competitive at times as well, beating all of TCU, Kansas St., and Iowa St. when they were ranked and playing #6 Texas to 1 and 2 point games in both games they played while also blowing a late lead to lose by 4 at then #2 ranked Kansas (we’ll see one of the Texas and Kansas games). So, they were certainly a talented and competitive team, and Jacob Groves was a significant part of that. Per Evanmiya.com, he was part of all three of the Sooners’ most efficient 5-man lineups as well as 4 of the top 5, and his pairing with Jalen Hill was tied for the most efficient duo on the team. Even with his mid-season slump, even with his reduced minutes, Oklahoma was still at their best when he was playing his best basketball, and that was apparent when watching.

Offensively, Oklahoma ran an offense very reminiscent of the NBA’s spacing with two players stationed in each corner (Groves was almost always one of these when he was on the floor), another player covering one of the corner players on the wing, and then a center (normally Jacob’s brother Tanner) either posting up in the middle or running the pick and roll with super PG – Grant Sherfield. Spread the floor, create something toward the rim or in the midrange and, if an advantage is created and the opportunity is there, kick it out for an open three with the players positioned around the perimeter. This was a pretty effective strategy for Oklahoma to maximize the touches and impact of their two best offensive players (Sherfield and Tanner Groves), but it wasn’t necessarily the best way to help Jacob Groves consistently contribute. Aside from setting a few pin down screens himself every once in a while, or going into the lane to exploit a mismatch after a switch, there was almost no action to create open looks for him. If the defense helped off of him or got caught out of position in transition or something similar, he could get an open look, but it was mostly dependent on how the defense decided to play him. If they chose to help off of him, the opportunities would be there, but if they stayed home on him, there would be significant chunks of game time where he wouldn’t be heavily integrated into the offense. Much of this was compounded by the fact that he wasn’t often a huge threat to beat his man off of the dribble one-on-one, which could create a compounded stagnation.

As an end result, if the Oklahoma offense was humming, Jacob Groves would often be a key part of that, punishing open looks and converting opportunities created through rotations and imbalance. On the other hand, he could disappear on the occasions his shot wasn’t falling of if the defense decided they just wanted to take him out of the offense/help off of other players/or were willing to live honestly defending the pick and roll or post up action of Oklahoma’s 5-out/4-around-one style of offense.

Defensively, Oklahoma mostly ran almost exclusively man-to-man. Later in the season they would occasionally show some creative zone looks that would then sometimes evolve into man in the middle of the possession or sometimes would stay in the zone. The vast majority of their looks were man-to-man, though. They mostly had their bigs play drop coverage against the pick and roll and they mostly played defense straight up, occasionally sending help or a trap but mostly focusing on their own assignment. There are a lot of help side and rotational assignments that Groves will be asked to tackle at UVa that were not a staple of the Oklahoma defense. Despite being the second tallest player on the Sooners at 6’9″ Groves was often assigned to cover opposing team wings where Jalen Hill would more often slot to defend opposing PFs. This wasn’t always consistent and would often depend on the matchup or they would willingly switch, so Groves spent time both defending the post and the perimeter but, given that he was normally covering a smaller player, he’d most commonly be attacked outside-in.

Okay, without further ado, let’s get into it!

Offense

As mentioned earlier, Groves’s clear strength as an offensive player is his outside shooting – hitting a cool 38.1% of his threes on three attempts per game for the season, the best mark of his career on the highest volume. For context, this would have been the second highest % on our team last year, with only Isaac McKneely’s 39.2% surpassing it. In a similar “stretch 4” (or sometimes even 5) role last year, Ben Vander Plas hit 30.3% of his threes on almost four attempts per game. Groves shot better from outside than any of Franklin, Beekman, or Clark and can really fill it up without needing much space, which we’ll see soon.

He’s got a better handle than I expected when watching him, and can be really nifty with the ball off of the bounce. From a technical and ball handling standpoint, his skillset is more like a guard and he would play offense almost exclusively starting on the perimeter (again, excepting if he’d be switched onto and have a mismatch). That being said, he has minus quickness and speed, so his ability to create for himself off of the bounce was often limited. Defenders could often encroach his space to keep him from shooting and still have the quickness to stay in front of him on his drive. He didn’t often choose to go into the post against similarly sized players and so, all combined, this positioned him more as, at times, a high quality complimentary offensive player capable of capitalizing on opportunities created by other team members at a high clip, but not often the kind of player able to take on a larger offensive role in terms of creation or initiation himself. Let’s take a look at all of the pieces:

Catch and Shoot

This is definitely the strength of Groves’s game and is why he has the potential to be very effective given the right situation. Here’s a look in an early season game @ Villanova. That’s 6’8″ Brandon Slater on Groves who is a very good defender. Oklahoma runs a little pin down screen to get Sherfield (#25) open in the middle of the court, Tanner Groves (#35) heads down to the block by the rim. The screen action gets Sherfield’s man trailing him, so both post men sag a little to stop/deter the continuation of the drive. It doesn’t take much space for Sherfield to be able to kick this out to Jacob Groves on the wing and for him to use his height and quick release to fire away smoothly over the recovering Slater. You’ll notice, Slater doesn’t even really show aggressively or commit much at all toward Sherfield, he merely lingers for a moment too long and it causes him to lose touch with Groves’s ability to shoot. This is very effective spacing enforcement right here:

Here’s a different look at home against #9 Arkansas. That’s 6’7″ Jordan Walsh (#13) guarding Groves and attempting to play help side. He is far too aggressive and helpful in the lane on the drive away from Groves, leaving him open between the opposite wing/corner. Milos Uzan (#12), who was playing SG here and often played secondary ball handler duties for the Sooners, probed into the lane and had an easy pass across to Groves for the bucket. A much bigger commitment from Walsh here than we saw from Slater above, and he punishes it again.

And here are a few more from the game at home vs. #6 Texas, which was Groves’s most complete game against the best competition that I watched both offensively and defensively. Here’s a look of him starting on the near-side wing cutting through the lane into the opposite corner to uncover Uzan in the nearside corner and allow Sherfield to rotate up. Uzan uses the space to drive baseline, drawing help, and sends the pass across to Groves who catches it low, but is still able to bring it up into a quick and silky shot motion.

Here’s another look from the same game. As can see below, Groves starts baseline and when his man stays home to help on a potential dive to the hoop from Tanner, Jacob drifts up to the wing and knocks down the open look with ease.

Another look, below, this time Groves starts out covered in the corner and rotates up the wing as Uzan penetrates the opposite side. His defender stays home in the lane to help and Jacob buries the three.

And a last look, below, which I really like because it’s just a secondary break where he stays on the right hand in line of vision of Sherfield, who makes his man commit. The 6’2″ Marcus Carr on Texas (#5) is torn between being under the hoop to prevent that pass and then having to get out to Groves, who easily buries the three in transition.

Now, Groves was 5-9 from three in this game and ended with 17 points, which highlights his ability to really catch fire, but notice also that these opportunities are all choices made by Texas to help off of him. There are no clips from the Kansas game because he was 0-1 and, as you’ll see, they made the defensive decision just not to leave him. He finished with 2 points in that game, one of several in close succession where he finished between 0-5 points.

Either way, this is easily the biggest strength of his game. He’s a great catch and shoot player from outside who has a quick release and the height not to be bothered by many close outs. While this element of his game can be disrupted by simply not having his defender play much help defense, this is a benefit as well as it takes a defender basically out of the defense and creates more spacing for his teammates.

So let’s now look at the rest of his offensive game:

Off The Bounce

The biggest liability to Groves’s game on both ends is his quickness/footspeed. He actually has a very clean and productive handle for a player of his size, but he often struggles to create an advantage on his opponent whose comparative quickness often allows them to get back into the play. There are some times where he can punish an advantage created through the flow of an offense with his dribble, and there are some times where he’s able to use his size to his advantage to compensate for his lack of quickness, but when defenders aren’t overly-aggressive and just stay home/play him honestly, it is often a struggle.

This clip below is from the first game I watched where he scored the first five points of the game; a three from the corner, which is something I was expecting, but then this pull up off of the dribble as the shot clock ran down:

Now that play got me incredibly excited. Brandon Slate is 6’8″, athletic, and a very good defender, and Groves did not shake him with quickness, but rather with tight ball handling and then just using his height to get a clean shot off. But, I will say, this was really a rarity. Groves often wasn’t asked to create at the end of a shot clock where he HAD to shoot, and this wasn’t the kind of shot he’d often try unless forced to. Also notice, he never really loses or creates much separation with Slater, it’s just very good shot making here. More on this kind of look to come.

This next clip, below, is against Arkansas. Jordan Walsh is overly aggressive, trying to use his quickness to hound Groves. When Jacob gives a little ball fake like he’s going to start dribbling toward the top of the three-point line, Walsh jumps it, putting him out of position and creating an open driving lane. Groves is able to take that space, drawing help defenders and then finding his brother on the three-point line for the assist.

Here’s another look against Arkansas, below. Jordan Walsh is again overly aggressive, this time trying to jump the passing lane for the steal, putting him out of position and giving Groves a line to drive baseline. Walsh actually does recover and gets back into decent defending position but tries to draw a charge, falling to the ground for a no call. Groves savvily steps through the help defender using good body control and finishes the layup.

Here’s a look against Texas, below, where Texas is helping pretty aggressively off of him and eventually attempts to trap the driver, Hill, in the lane. Hill is able to spin out of it and dribble a pass out toward Groves as Texas attempts to recover a bit desperately. Groves is able to collect the ball while initiating the dribble in a same-hand cross-over, and then just evaluates the play, takes another bounce toward the hoop and comfortably knocks down the midrange jumper. Kind of a marriage of his shooting ability with his quality handle on this one, but also through a scramble play from the defense.

This next look is from the game at Kansas. Kansas approached defense to Groves differently than in the other three games I’m highlighting and their approach was replicated for a while. But, here’s a rare look where the 6’10” Zach Clemence instead of Grady Dick and, although it’s lumbering and pretty out-of-control by the end, Groves is able to drive to the baseline and then curl a bit of a blind pass to Sam Godwin (the 6’10” backup to his brother) who is able to use his size to collect the ball and dunk it.

Here’s another look at the very end of the shot clock where he gets 6’9″ C Makhi Mitchell switched onto him. Mitchell spent most of the game matched up against Tanner or Godwin and wasn’t as quick as most of Groves’s primary defenders. Jacob is able to give the pump fake, step back into a hesitation, driveto his left, and then finish with a nifty hook shot going back to his right as the buzzer sounds. So, he definitely has the ability to create against bigger, slower, switches off of the bounce, he’s just rarely guarded by these kinds of players.

More often, when guarded by his natural defensive matchups, we’d see looks like the below. This first one is against Texas where his man gambles on the ball, giving him a clear path to the hoop… but he doesn’t really have an idea of what he wants to do with it. He drives right into the Texas defender, jump stops, isn’t strong with the ball, and has it stripped away. It’s a bit of a wasteful opportunity where he neither creates a look for himself or his available teammate from the help defender.

Here’s a look, below, from the Kansas game. Groves has 6’8″ Jalen Wilson switch onto him when he catches the ball on the wing. As Wilson looks to close the gap, Groves shows him a ball fake, hoping to get him to jump, but Wilson stays home and raises his hand while staying in good defensive position and keeping a cushion. Now when Groves attempts to take him off of the dribble, he’s able to use his quickness to stay in front, responds well to the drop step in the lane, and contests the shot, forcing a bad miss.

Here’s another look vs. Kansas with the 6’8″ Grady Dick on him. Dick keeps himself in decent help position early in the possession but you can see he makes a bigger effort to stay within closing distance to Groves. When Groves gets the ball, Dick is there to contest but keeps a good defensive cushion. Groves shows him a shot fake which Dick does respond to, but he’s quick enough to slide/retreat when Groves attempts to take him off of the dribble. As Groves spins back into traffic toward the center of the lane, he staggers, moving his pivot foot for the travel. Pretty straight-forward defense by Kansas just by being aware of his shot threat and just playing him honestly defensively.

This time it’s against the smaller 6’6″ Kevin McCullar Jr. and, after catching the ball in the corner, Groves attempts to drive left toward the center of the lane and then spin back to his right. McCullar Jr. easily slides with him, though, cuts off his angle, and is able to duck back into his spin to swipe at the ball and strip it away.

And this last one was at the end of the Villanova game (they lost all four of these games) in which they were clinging to a narrow lead late in the game. Here he attempts to take 6’4″ Caleb Daniels off of that left handed dribble to the center of the lane. Daniels uses his quickness to get good positioning and stonewalls him with good lower body strength. This takes Groves off of his momentum but he still attempts to use his size advantage to get a shot up in a bit of a sideways half floater, half pull up that misses to the side badly, hitting the backboard and not drawing iron.

There were a lot of examples of these kinds of efforts that didn’t end as poorly – with a turnover or bad shot – but just didn’t really go anywhere/the offense would be reset. Despite the handle, this is not the strength of Groves’s game, creating from a neutral position off of the bounce. He really needs a positional advantage created for him on which he’s then effective at capitalizing.

Inside Game

Groves really didn’t often try to take his primary man inside much. Occasionally, he’d attempt that spin off dribble and he also has that hook shot we saw earlier that he likes to go to in the lane but, again, he mostly stayed on the perimeter.

A major exception to this would be if he would get switched onto a considerably smaller player, which rarely happened but would on occasion on a scramble play or in transition. Here’s a look, below, against Villanova. Now, initially, Groves has 6’7″ freshman Cam Whitmore on him but, in a rare dribble handoff exchange that takes him out top, Villanova switches and he’s covered by the 6’2″ Mark Armstrong. Side note, you get to see his comfortable handle on display setting this up. Whitmore has switched onto Sherfield and Groves throws him a good pass in the corner, but Whitmore is long and athletic and is able to stay with Sherfield’s attempt to get into the lane. The ball goes to the other corner and it’s at this point that Groves realizes what he has (or decides to take advantage of it) and dives right into the lane looking for the ball. This is a deviation from the standard Oklahoma offensive flow where really mostly only Tanner Groves or Godwin played this role. The ball swings to his brother on the wing and, through the rotations, Armstrong attempts to front Jacob. Jacob puts him on his hip, extends his hand, gets a good entry pass and, although he does have to pause to gather, confidently finishes over the 6’4″ Arcidiacono coming from the help side.

That’s a great example of awareness, recognizing the mismatch, and then deviating/demanding the ball. Here’s another one, below, from the same game after an offensive rebound in transition, Armstrong is again left with Groves as his assignment as Villanova scrambles to find the closest man. Groves identifies, dives to the middle, works very hard to get the ball, and then takes a very accurate pass from his brother leading him to the hoop. I like his catch and finish here, very natural and smooth and highlights his ball skill.

This next one is a look against Kansas where Oklahoma pushes the ball up the floor forcing Kansas to stick to their closest men. This leaves 6’1″ Dajuan Harris Jr. on Groves. I’d say that he’s not as assertive about demanding the ball here, but he makes himself available and presents a target throughout. I also like his spatial awareness as when he catches the ball he seamlessly goes into his shot motion, which keeps K.J. Adams who is crashing help side from being able to get into the play quickly enough.

Notably, though, these were his only two points from the Kansas game and, from there, they played him as illustrated above and took him out of the game.

Here’s the problem, though. In this clip, below, you’ll see that there isn’t a switch on this play, Villanova just has the 6’4″ Arcidiacono matched up on Groves. Groves is able to collect a good offensive rebound as a result, but his ensuing post move isn’t strong and resorts to that hook shot, falling away, that airballs.

Villanova didn’t shy away from being able to play this matchup and, unlike the other mismatches I highlighted above, Groves didn’t look to proactively exploit it in the post. Ideally, with a mismatch of this size, you’d want him getting a look going toward the rim, trying to finish strong or draw a foul, rather than fading away from the bucket.

Here’s a different look against Arkansas which could illustrate the reasoning behind some of his reluctance. Once again he uses that left-handed drive, this time off of a screen from his brother, and draws the switch. He goes to his spin move back to his right, but Walsh is there, so he attempts an up and under with a little push shot, but Walsh is athletic and aware enough just to stay on the move, block it, and send the Razorbacks running the other way.

The next clip, below, is against Texas where, once again he gets a positive switch, this time in the form of the 6’0″ Tyrese Hunter (#4). Hunter attempts to front and Groves pushes off a little (hey, physical play in a power 5!), and catches the ball behind the defense moving toward the hoop. The problem here is that he stops to pump fake the shot. Given the size disparity, he should have just gone right up with this ball. Instead, Dylan Disu (#1) is able to use the time from the fake to get back into the play and deliver a powerful block from behind.

One last clip on this, below, against Kansas. Sherfield splits his defenders and draws Grady Dick up to stop the penetration. Groves makes a good cut (from the corner!) baseline and gets the ball in stride. Given this spacing, you’d want him to either dunk it or just go up strong with a left handed layup. The help side defense is not very intrusive but he does seem to feel threatened by it and, instead, attempts to elevate for a reverse layup on the other side of the rim. This is a much more difficult shot and results in missing out on a quality opportunity.

So, I would say this is a bit of a mixed bag. Oklahoma’s offensive scheme did not put him in many positions where defenses had to switch. He did demonstrate the ability to take advantage of those, most of the time, when it did, though. On the other hand, his lack of explosion at the rim and lack of confidence/willingness to finish around athletic players similar to his size, minimized his effectiveness as a scoring threat near the bucket in most instances.

Put all of the above together and it makes sense why Groves’s offensive output varied so extremely over the span of the year. He’s a great complimentary piece to capitalize on advantage created by his teammates, but Oklahoma’s system didn’t manufacture many looks for him directly, and his skillset was such that opposing defenses could often pick and choose whether or not they wanted to let him attempt to beat them or not.

Alright, let’s jump over to the defensive side of the ball and then we’ll put it all together in a UVa context.

Defense

I’m not sure I’ve seen two more different defensive performances this past season than Jacob Groves @ Villanova and vs. Texas. He was consistently attacked and taken advantage of in the former, and very much held his own in the latter. It comes back to his lack of footspeed and quickness, which we’ll look at against Villanova, but he was able to lock in and use his length and some physicality at times during the season. From what I saw, it came down to whether or not he could lock in and “sustain” (as CTB often says) his defensive focus, his overall defensive awareness, and how tightly the officials were calling hand contact on drives.

Regardless, this isn’t an area where I expect he will ever thrive or positively help take over a game. What we should be looking and hoping for is that the transition to the Pack Line and working under CTB will help him remain solid and reliable in this area rather than being a targeted point of attack. Let’s take a look:

On Ball Defense

Despite his height and size, much of Jacob Groves’s defense was spent on the perimeter matched up against wings and stretch 4 type players where his minus footspeed and quickness was tested. Let’s go ahead and jump right into the first clip vs. the 6’5″ Jordan Longino against Villanova, where he really struggled in this area. Longino catches the ball and Groves is still carrying his momentum toward him. This allows Longino to simply rip the ball through and drive baseline. Groves is beaten and unable to react quickly enough, he gets rubbed a little bit at the end, and you see him try to get his shoulder/hip into him to push the drive farther baseline but Longino is completely by him at this point and is able to finish unbothered on the other side of the rim. This was simply a matter of giving up the first step and then footspeed for Longino doing the rest.

Here’s a look at him vs. projected top 10 pick 6’7″ Cam Whitmore. After the offensive rebound is collected, Groves gets isolated against Whitmore on the wing. You can see how big of a cushion he gives him to begin with so that he’ll have some time to react to the drive, but when Whitmore fakes the drive in, Groves jumps way back, giving a ton of buffer for Whitmore just to step back behind the three-point line and sink the shot. This kind of cushion is what you see when a player is worried they won’t be able to stay in front of their man.

Another clip against Whitmore and it’s a good move by a highly sought after NBA prospect so, keep that in mind, but you can still see Groves struggling with the change of direction. He first thinks Whitmore is going to reject the ball screen so he attempts to jump into position but staggers when he realizes that Whitmore is going to use it. He fights over the screen and his brother Tanner drops, allowing Jacob to get back in front of Whitmore. Whitmore simply waits for the recover so that the has Groves isolated again, hits him with an inside-out dribble, takes him left to the hoop and finishes strong.

Here’s later in this game this time it’s the 6’4″ Caleb Daniels in isolation in transition and it’s a similar thing as to what we saw with Whitmore earlier. Groves is so concerned about the drive that he’s playing way too far back. Daniels gets a huge cushion on two separate occasions in this short sequence, the first time likely trying to set up the drive but when he realizes how committed Groves is to playing off, he sets up the three.

Last clip against Villanova, and this one was the most concerning for me, guarding the 6’8″ Brandon Slater. Here we see Groves initially sagging down into the lane to help double team the guard post up. Now, Oklahoma rarely doubled hard, they’d often kind of cautiously show like this in hopes of getting a kick out, but there were a lot of times where Groves (and others) would sag to the level of the ball handler but not really make an effort to steal the ball or make his life difficult. It was more of a shade strategy to keep them honest. The unfortunate part of this play is that it works, Groves encourages the ball to be kicked back out to his man, but in attempting to recover by sending his momentum at Slater, Slater just completely blows by him for an easy layup at the basket.

It’s always harder to stop the drive when it starts as your momentum is heading at the dribbler. You have to then stop your momentum, react to the dribbler, and change your direction – but this was especially a big challenge for Groves and this basket was too easy. This is something to keep an eye on given how much we help and recover at UVa. It was very glaring in this Villanova game as they looked to attack him across multiple players and, when it wasn’t this easy, drew some fouls, creating for others, etc.

In the last challenging clip on this, we’ll look at one from the Arkansas game where he picks up 6’6″ Ricky Council IV in transition and Council freezes then blows by him on the way to the hoop for a hard finish and the foul against Tanner who tries to take the charge. It can’t be this easy and actually looks like Jacob moves out of his way on the drive (he just misread the drive angle and couldn’t react quickly enough to recover).

So, this has the potential to be a big concern. However, there is another side to this coin and if you had just watched his game against Texas, for example, you would have seen a much different defensive player on the ball.

Here he is against 6’8″ Dillon Mitchell initially playing help side defense, sagging into the lane, and then having to recover as a skip pass is thrown to Mitchell. This time, he takes a much better angle on the recovery and his reaction to the drive looks MUCH better and quicker. In fact, he puts himself in position to potentially take a charge. Now, he was actually called for a technical for flopping on this play but, after the replay, I thought at the very least it should have been a no call and Mitchell did extend his arm during the contact. Either way, flop or no, his positioning is much better here.

This is in transition D where we saw him get beaten rather badly above, this time it’s #10 Sir’Jabari Rice at 6’4″ who catches the ball on the wing and Groves has to switch over to him. He actually leaves his feat on the contest/show, but notice that it’s a horizontal slide kept low to the ground so that he’s able to quickly react to the shot fake and notice how much more quickly he goes from the contest to showing the ability to respond to a potential baseline drive. Rice thinks better and swings the ball, a secondary break opportunity thwarted at least at that moment.

Here’s a look against 6’2″ guard Marcus Carr (#5) in transition as well and look how night and day it was from some of the clips earlier. I actually really love this defense as he keeps his left hand active, anticipates and jumps the drive, and then keeps moving his feet backward/ceding ground without going down or giving up the contact/physicality which was initiated by Carr but Groves was the bigger player. The result is that Carr loses control of his dribble and Oklahoma heads back the other way. Really good transition defense here on a much quicker player.

This time it’s 6’3″ Arterio Morris (#2) who Groves switches onto after a dribble handoff and does a good job of initially and quickly cutting off the baseline drive. Morris attempts to fake like he’s pulling the ball out to lull Groves to relax, and then goes back baseline, but Groves reacts well and is able to initiate contact/use his side while sliding to bump Morris out of bounds for the turnover. (As an aside, I realize now that I’ve never called this out specifically, but I list the heights for opponents just so you can get a sense of what kind of matchup each of these clips are).

And then, a little later, we see the 6’6″ Timmy Allen (#0) get the ball extended from the high post. Groves fights under a screen and takes a good line to cut off the drive, keep his body between Allen and the basket, and then uses his length to make the shot a difficult one that misses.

And, while there weren’t a ton of guys who he guarded who attempted to take him in the post given how Oklahoma used him and who he typically guarded, he’s a great look at the end of a game of Timmy Allen (#0) attempting to do so. I like how active and physical Groves is with the lower body here as Allen attempts to move toward the center of the lane, and then he slides and recovers very well on the drop step attempt, sticking to Allen’s hip and being there for a tall and bothersome contest that misses. Bonus defensive content after Texas gets the offensive rebound, the ball eventually works back to the 6’7″ Christian Bishop (#32) with Groves on him and he again uses his base to bump Bishop, this time toward the baseline forcing the errant pass and turnover. Two active and physical defensive plays in a row here in a big moment.

So, this is a tale of two very different defensive players on the ball, and it wasn’t just in the Texas game, that’s just where we saw it show up most dramatically and consistently. But here’s a look, below, against Kansas where he’s basically just straight shadowing sharp shooting 6’8″ Grady Dick, at times playing with his back to the ball to face guard him. Dick catches the ball on this play and attempts to run Groves over a screen, but Groves subtly uses his left hand to check Dick’s momentum and ever-so-slightly throw him off of his line, allowing Groves to get under the screen and cut off the potential drive. That’s savvy defense on that one.

In the Arkansas game, this is a different look against Council IV in transition that came later in the game, perhaps after he more properly gauged his speed. Council IV attempts to isolate Groves but he gives proper cushion, reacts to the drive, and uses good strength/physicality to shut it down and force a pass.

So, what accounts for the difference? In my opinion, it’s concentration. Groves HAS to be thinking one to two steps ahead of his man in order to compensate for the quickness differential most of the time but, if he does, his plus length and strength can be used to disrupt drives. Now, when he’s in a game that’s called a little more tightly, this may still be a problem regardless, but in games where they’re allowing a little contact and where he’s locked in, he can be a very effective defender on the ball.

But, speaking of concentration…

Off Ball Defense

This will probably be the defensive area on which he needs the most work/adjustment coming to UVa. Oklahoma has very different help side defensive principles in that they often left their teammates on an island to defend one-on-one and played their own man straight up. Groves would often get caught ball watching, lose focus/awareness, or sometimes just not be able to help enough when he made a rotation.

Here’s a look against Villanova that might send shivers down the spine of UVa defensive basketball enthusiasts. Eric Dixon (#43) gets the ball in the post with Groves on Brandon Slater in the corner. As Slater clears, Groves walks past Dixon without so much as swiping at the ball or doing anything to make the play uncomfortable for him. Understood that their philosophy was not to double team here, but something to make the offensive player have to protect the ball/be distracted would be good. Then Groves gets on a line between Dixon and Slater, but gets caught ball watching and Slater uses the opportunity to cut past him to the other side of the hoop. Dixon throws a pass that goes right by Groves’s head on its way to Slater who collects and moves through to the other side of the basket for the layup. Also notice how once Slater catches it that close, there really isn’t much Groves is going to be able to do to contest that shot. He’s not a quick elevation shot eraser – but this play was just him losing vision of his man and not staying in the passing lane.

This next look is against Arkansas has him sagging down on the opposite block of the post as his man, Jordan Walsh, stands in the opposite corner. Walsh fades up to the area between the wing and top of the three-point line as Arkansas sends to screeners to obstruct Groves. He’s slow to identify this is a concern here and doesn’t react with nearly enough urgency to get by the screens and contest the shot.

Again vs. the Razorbacks, this time he ends up pinned to Walsh on the opposite block of the play after providing some solid sag help to deter a drive. But as Arkansas lands a back door cut going to the hoop, Groves makes no effort to come over to stop the play. Now, at first I thought maybe he didn’t see the cutter in time (which would have been a different issue) but after re-watching this play a couple of times it’s clear that Groves sees the cutter when he’s getting the ball and rather than leaving Walsh to come across to help, he looks back at Walsh to find him to box him out. Now Oklahoma, as I mentioned, doesn’t sent a lot of help. So it’s possible but, in my opinion, incredibly unlikely that they would have preferred for him to stay home to box out rather than trying to disrupt a wide open layup cutting down the left hand side of the lane. More, I just don’t think Groves thought he could make this play, which is an issue with both positioning off of the ball and lateral quickness/awareness/confidence.

This next one against Kansas is just playing with his back to the ball and not being aware of the rotational threat. This is a pick and pop, and the ball handler does a nice job of pressing the issue off of the screen so that Tanner Groves (#35) has to sag deep to keep him from getting to the hoop. Uzan (#12) on Oklahoma trails the play, working to get back on his man, leaving the screener alone at the three-point line. But, as this drive and temporary double team is happening, Jacob Groves has his back to the play. He should have been seeing this and positioning himself lower down, half way between his man and the screener so that he could potentially disrupt a pass but recover to either. He doesn’t identify the need until WAY too late and then doesn’t get into the play to make a worthwhile contest as a result.

This next one we see him, this time off-the-ball, trying to stick with Grady Dick. Again, a lot of these players I’m showing him on are GOOD, NBA-bound, players – but so are many players in the ACC especially in our most trying matchups. This is where you can just see Dick’s change of direction staggering him a couple of times and keeping him off balance enough to open up a nice little pocket pass to his rolling post man for the layup.

And, finally, this one is chasing Grady Dick again. Notably, he is plastered much more closely onto him due to his shooting threat, but this lack of space created a challenge to react in time to his change of direction. Initially he does well to get over a screen, bumping Dick without drawing the call to angle out his drive. But then, as Dick cuts through to the opposite side, Groves relaxes for just a moment. Grady cuts back baseline past him and catches the ball around the block. Groves’s momentum takes him into Dick and fouls him on the turnaround (which almost went in over the backboard!).

Now, it’s not like he didn’t play some very good off-ball defense at times, too. This look, below, translates very well to what we do. He sags off of his man in the middle of the lane while Villanova attempts to post up from the guard position on the opposite side (Oklahoma was much more willing to send help in a guard post up). Groves lands the double team and then quickly identifies Slater, recovers, and repositions himself so that he can take the charge.

One of the few shot clock violations that I saw Oklahoma force, Groves gets switched onto the 6’0″ Tyrese Hunter (#4) here. He’s really in pretty solid defensive positioning throughout. I thought it was interesting how when his man attempted a pin down screen for Hunter, Groves jumped high and turned his back entirely to the ball, face guarding Hunter so that he could obstruct the passing lane if he cut either direction. He executes the switch and then follows Hunter closely, fighting over the top of an off-ball screen and continuing to position himself within the lane. Now, from there, he slides with Hunter up to the wing and is very close on him as if to deny the ball. This causes him to basically ignore a driver who goes past him, but the Sooners are able to force that violation nonetheless.

This is not only his biggest area for improvement, I also think it’s a great marriage in that it’s the area CTB will certainly be able to help him improve. Increased and sustained awareness will be key, but will also be something he’ll surely be drilled with. How quickly he picks it up and adjusts will surely factor into how much time he spends in the rotation in a big way.

Rebounding

The first of two more items here we’ll look at much more briefly, I wouldn’t say that Groves is a bad rebounder but it’s also not a strength. When he would get a positive switch on him he was much more aggressive about attempting to crash the offensive glass. We saw one play earlier when he had Arcidiacono on him, here’s another such instance where the shot goes up from the opposite side and, realizing the mismatch, he crashes hard, goes up, grabs the ball, and draws the foul in so doing.

Defensively, he does this thing in lieu of a traditional box out at times where he puts his arms close into his body/shoulder and just kind of shoulder blocks his may away from the ball. In this clip, below, against Arkansas, he gives up rebounding position against Jordan Walsh but basically, subtly, shoves him under the hoop and goes up and gets the ball. It may sound disparaging when I say that but if you aren’t extending your arm, that kind of pushing inside for rebounds often isn’t called, especially when you’re the defensive player. So, I do like the subtle physicality and it can be quite effective.

However, his lack of verticality or elite athleticism could be exposed at times as well. Here’s a look against Dillon Disu (#1) from Texas where he loses track of him crashing in from the baseline and doesn’t get a body on him. We can see Disu slip inside, elevate with Groves, take the contact and maintain positioning, and high point the ball over him. He’s then able to get back up quickly and finish without a problem.

And this last look is against Kansas and Groves actually ends up with the ball at the end and saves it from going out of bounds. So, I should note that I like the persistence and scrappiness shown here. But, when you’re in the middle of a play like this one and the opposing team is doing the whole volleyball thing on the glass where they’re missing the shots but they’re keeping it alive (and going over Groves in a couple of instances to do so), this is often a good sign that conceding offensive rebounds is a vulnerability of yours against long and athletic teams.

He’s definitely learned some tricks of the trade to improve his performance in this area, but I would still classify it as a likely weakness in most ACC matchups.

Rim Protection

This really isn’t part of his game. The closest thing, normally, are plays like this, below, where the 6’4″ Devonte Davis of Arkansas gets the ball in transition and attempts to take Groves off of the dribble. Groves has enough run up here that he can jump and obscure/make the shot difficult enough to force the miss.

A few of the plays earlier had looks like this where he’s able to get into his opponent’s space and alter the shot angle, but you’re not going to see him come crashing from the help side to get hands on shots very often – he’s not going to be a shot eraser.

In Conclusion

In 2021, as one of the two best players on Eastern Washington along with his brother, Jacob Groves scored 23 points against Kansas in the first round of the NCAA tournament on 8-11 shooting from the floor and 4-5 from three. Two years later, after transferring to Oklahoma with his brother and being a smaller part of ostensible a better team, he scored a combined 5 points across two games against the Jayhawks. Now, I watched that game as well and Eastern Washington actually ran their offense very similarly to how Oklahoma did, with Jacob spending a lot of time in the corner. He also got off to a very hot start in that one and, once Kansas adjusted their coverage, he scored much less in the second half.

My point being, here, that in that offensive system, he’s the kind of player who can heat up but who can also be taken out of the game with scouting and intention. However, I DO think that he fits very well into what we do offensively. He should be a fine screener in sides, and should be a pop option in the pick and pop. But, more, I believe he would be able to thrive in the Inside Triangle in the Ben Vander Plas role from last year. He could be either a screener inside, forcing switches and finishing inside against mismatches or, more likely, popping outside from the screening action, drawing defenders and opening up the middle of the floor for Beekman while presenting as a much higher percentage outside shooter than we had from the position last year. If they didn’t want to rely on his screen action, he would also be fine as one of the wings in that offense, simply spotting up from outside and taking advantage of his defender leaving to help, effectively playing the same role he played in his previous two offenses by forcing a man to glue to him, creating better spacing for other players. Like how he was utilized with Oklahoma, he should be an effective role player when it comes to punishing help and converting open opportunities. Unlike how he was utilized with Oklahoma, our offensive sets should proactively create more open looks for him from the outside. Last year, defenses could, more or less, just decide how they wanted to defend him. If they opted not to leave him, there was a good chance that he wasn’t going to be a huge part of the offense, given his skillset and the offensive design. This year, I would expect our offensive sets to force defenses to either leave him open or to have allow some wide-open buckets inside (likely most commonly from the penetrating Beekman), and we have seen that he can be an effective player inside if he gets switched onto a smaller defender which; switching is the most common way to combat the Triangle after it’s been scouted.

So, I think Jacob Groves can be a very effective offensive piece for us as a stretch 4. I imagine CTB will be tempted to play him as a stretch 5 on occasion as he did BVP last year. However, if he does ever get run at 5, that will mean neither Minor nor Buchanan are in the game, and he’ll be paired with probably either Dunn, Bond, or a 4th Guard at the 4. While I’m not advocating this for a variety of reasons, mostly defensively, that lineup will always resemble the BVP + Dunn or with Franklin at the 4 lineups that we saw last year, which were much more effective than the lineups with Gardner at the 4 and BVP at the five. Plus, Dunn will have an additional year in the system and has worked on his outside shot, and Groves is considerably better from deep and has a quicker release from BVP. So, while I could understand if there’s some skepticism around this and I hope they wouldn’t use it as a base or starting lineup, I do think that our personnel would make this kind of approach more consistently effective.

Groves’s offensive effectiveness will almost entirely depend on whether or not his shot is falling from outside, though. So, if he’s cold, we’ll need to be willing to go away from him for other options, plain and simple. But I do expect far fewer cold spells than we saw from the position last year when he’s in the game.

Defense is going to be the big question. Can he do enough such that his long distance striking ability is worth it and we aren’t bleeding points on the other end? I do believe that he has the ability to be a solid, if unspectacular, defender as long as he’s paired with a quality rim protector with time under CTB’s tutelage (and I view Dunn and Buchanan as the best of these on this roster). His physical limitations are apparent but he still guarded some of the best players in college basketball over the past two seasons and, often, was able to hold his own. From my viewpoint, it seemed more of a mental piece. How locked in can he stay throughout his time on the floor in order to not make the mental errors that lead either to rotational or physical mistakes? If he can’t, then we need to look for other options and can’t fall in love with his shooting potential.

If he’s able to grow in this area, though, which I do think is likely, given CTB, then I think we’re looking at a potential 20 minute plus player for us this season. CTB has been drawn to spacing and shooting in the position recently, as has all of college hoops, really, and his presence on the floor will unlock the most creative lineup combinations. For example, I could see us playing him alongside Dunn, Rohde, IMK, and Beekman and basically playing a version of 5 wide. I could see him playing alongside Buchanan or Minor in more traditional sets with that stretch 4, and I could also see his presence at the 4 being a way to get Dunn some run at the 3 and allowing him to take whoever the more athletic/mobile 3-4 from the other team was while flexing the lineup’s plus size.

Using a Chess simile, Groves is kind of like the knight on our roster next season. Perhaps not the most exciting or impactful piece, but the one who allows for some of the most unexpected/creative/diverse angles of attack. I fully expect that CTB will seize on this and that Groves will be the first player in the frontcourt to come off of the bench for most of the season. I wouldn’t be surprised, although I wouldn’t want it to last, if we see him starting some games at some point, either.

Broadly speaking, I think this is a good thing and there’s going to be a very important role for him to play in order to maximize this team’s ability to score and its upside. His shooting should allow for some very potent lineups and should help to maximize Reece Beekman in space. But, if we fall in love with his shooting and stick with him when he’s either cold or not defending well, that has the potential to be a pitfall not dissimilar to last year. Similarly, if we don’t give Blake Buchanan much time as a result of the presence of Groves, that also has the potential to be a significant negative. His presence is a plus, but it’s going to require a delicate hand and a willingness to vary the amount of playing time he gets significantly.