Esteemed readers, after a long regular season filled with pretty extreme ups and downs, I bring you a Cuts from The Corner article that’s all about good vibes heading into tournament play. In a likely must-win game for our NCAA Tournament hopes, we won this one comfortably, secured the #3 seed in the ACC Tournament and, barring some pretty questionable decision-making from the selection committee, should have done enough to get in. Hopefully we’ll win a couple of games starting on Thursday and ensure we’re (well, in) not having to play in Dayton as well.
As a personal note, it was my goal coming into the season to write one of these recaps after every single regular season game and I was able to accomplish that thanks in no small part to the feedback and engagement that you all have brought to the site and its associated accounts. It’s hard to believe that this is only the second season of this website, and I continue to be blown away by the warm reception across the fanbase. I learn so much from going through this process every week and from the discussion with you all – and that’s both motivating and enhances my enjoyment of this team we love. Thank you!
This was also, probably, the last time we’ll see either Reece Beekman or Ryann Dunn at JPJ (although I’m still willing to dare to dream about Reece!). What a duo. Having the two best defensive players in the conference hands down and two players who could make a very good case for National Defensive Player of The Year, as well (Shead will be in that discussion too and I’d imagine will be recognized because of how dominant Houston is on that end). It’s been a joy to watch these two play this year so, for fun and without really any other theme, here are a few plays from this game that epitomize the ways in which they impacted the floor for us:
Gratuitous Beekman/Dunn Defensive Eye Candy
At the beginning of the year CTB was asked about this team’s ability to block shots and responded that he didn’t think we’d be a big shot blocking team this season. Well, at 9.9% of shots attempted, UVa’s block percentage is tied for second in the entire country (with Appalachian State, behind only Auburn’s 10.3%)! Reece got some at the guard level, we’ve gotten some from other players, but I don’t think even CTB could have anticipated the range and floor coverage that Dunn offered this season. And, really, there weren’t many better examples of it than on this play in this game. Here he is after a high hedge (sigh… but at least it’s him) recovering all the way back, past Groves who stops his man rolling, to erase the shot at the rim from Groves’s man cutting from the corner.
That athletic, rim protecting, mobile PF role has been a staple of CTB’s Pack Line over the years. We think of Akil Mitchell, Darion Atkins, Isaiah Wilkins, Mamadi Diakite… but none of them even came close to Ryan Dunn’s 2.4 blocks per game. Mitchell’s best was .6, Atkins 1.1, Wilkins 1.4, Diakite 1.7! That’s not to undersell any of their defense as they were all great in the role and there are other elements to the position as well – but it does highlight the insanity and scope of Dunn’s rim protection this year! In fact, throughout the entirety of CTB’s tenure, the ONLY player to ever average more blocks on a nightly basis was true Center Jay Huff’s 2.6 his senior season. We had the ability to watch something truly special in that regard this year.
As for Reece, the two-time ACC Defensive Player of The Year needs no introduction. He’s been a complete defender capable of locking down on the ball and taking the opposition’s best guard/wing out of the game. But probably the most iconic Beekman play over the years has been his ability to jump passing lanes; like here on the ill-advised cross-court pass, pretty effortlessly ensnaring the pass…
Or here, surprising the opposition with his reach, leading to a pick-six the other way:
How often have we seen a play like that over the years? His 2.1 steals per game this season is the most over the CTB era, tied only with himself two years ago, by a full half a steal more than the next closest player.
So, while we had seen a collective dip in our defensive efficiency since the 2019-2020 season, this season saw us return to a top 10 unit. But, while those teams were often more of a combined impact of many complimentary pieces, what’s remarkable about this team is that it’s been two of the most dominant defenders we’ve seen in the CTB era elevating the group collectively.
I’m really going to be savoring their excellence on this front over these next few contests, however many we get.
Alright, let’s talk some…
Existential Taine Time
I owe Taine Murray an apology. At least in the sense that I under-estimated him, not for writing as much (that’s kind of the whole point of this thing and sometimes we’re wrong!). At the beginning of the season in my pre-season article for playing time hopes and during much of non-conference play I basically wrote that I was ready to move on from Taine minutes. I didn’t see the upside, he had plenty of defensive struggles, and he represented a barrier to entry for some of our younger guys with more upside, like Eli and Leon. The metrics when he played were good but, in watching the games, early on much of that was bolstered by time in games that had been decided and/or I didn’t see where his presence on the floor was contributing to the positive outcomes very often. While I do still regret that we moved so clearly away from Eli and Leon this year, I no longer think those minutes needed to come from Taine; on the contrary. And what I grew to realize as the season progressed and our 8-game winning streak coincided with a peak in his minutes, is that he just, simply, was filling an offensive need that the team was severely lacking and that, normally, was not offset by his defensive limitations especially when he was used at strategic times and against opposing teams bench players.
It’s not even that he’s an offensive force himself or that he was creating much on his own, although his straight-line drives to the hoop have been both strong and effective when he’s taken the opportunity. But, the threat of him to shoot (along with his 45.5 3pt %!) coupled with his decisiveness (most of the time), allows for much more freedom and spacing within our offense, especially when we can pair him with both McKneely AND Groves. We saw this recently even with Andrew Rohde in this spot, playing in our “Spacing Lineup” along Reece, iMac, Groves, and a Center (normally Buchanan). But where Taine elevates the equation is both his conversion rate when he gets those open opportunities and he can also better take advantage of that space with those straight-line drives; something Rohde was struggling to have the quickness or strength to exploit.
The problem is, doing this either removes Ryan Dunn from the floor or removes one of our Centers from the floor, so we can’t often. Against teams like GT, as we’ll see, we were comfortable playing smaller with Dunn at Center; but that won’t always be a viable option. Still, even turning to Taine at the SF to spell Groves should ensure that we always have at least two shooters (in addition to Reece) on the floor, which does help to create a safety valve on Beekman’s drives and McKneely’s pressure. Let’s first take a look at what Murray brought to the table over his season-high 28 minutes on Saturday and then color that with some other elements to our offense.
In this first early clip we have our Small Ball lineup with Dunn at the 5 and Groves at the PF. Strategically, I want to talk about this for a moment because, theoretically, putting Dunn on the 6’9″ Baye Ndongo (#11) should be reasonable and not create the same mismatch that bigger, taller players like Bacot or Reid represent. That being said, Ndongo still scored 21 points on 8-12 shooting from the floor (some of this was augmented when Dunn was clearly limited with knee soreness over stretches). It didn’t ultimately matter because our offense played well and our defense tightened up in other areas, but we did lose the rebounding margin 34-25, resembling some of the issues we felt earlier in the season when this was our core lineup (with Rohde instead of Taine). So, I don’t think this is going to be a solution we can look to regularly against bigger teams; we’re going to have to either sit Dunn for it or just play Taine at the SF with Dunn and either Minor or Buchanan. Otherwise, we risk running into the same trap we faced prior to bringing Minor into the lineup earlier in the season – just perhaps a little less painful if we turn to Taine more than Rohde. Anyway, we’re running Sides here and this is just good/aware interplay between Murray and Groves. Murray catches the flare screen and probes – I thought he did a good job with his handle in this game – and after setting the screen, Groves smartly replaces behind him for the flip back.
Dual shooters forcing that GT respect them outside without helping/sagging.
Here, below, this is what I mean when speaking of Taine as a straight-line driver and how he represents an improvement on Rohde in this way. Rohde may have a better handle in general, but Murray has a quicker first step and is a stronger player better at playing through contact and not letting defenders control his progress with physicality. Here we see him with the same lineup only with Harris at the point. He probes the lane a bit, resets through McKneely, and takes a pass back in the corner before driving on his man and finishing at the rim.
A couple of things of note in that clip above; for one, his threat to shoot is real and that little pump fake before the drive sets his man just off balance enough. Secondly, there’s a really nice/intuitive body lean at around the 15/16 second mark that he uses to keep his man at bay and to maintain his driving angle without being pushed off of it. This is something Taine is good at, using his body to create some space, that none of our other primary shooters possess yet. Lastly, it’s just a good finish with a little baby hook at the rim! Good stuff.
Okay, here, below, we see the actual shooting at work, and I like how confidently he looked for it and willing he was to take these looks in this game; especially off of the shot fake. He was 2-5 for a cool 40%, and we’ll see another one later, but maybe most importantly (and CTB talked about this in the most recent Coach’s Corner), it was a lack of hesitation to take it when it was there. This set is especially notable because it’s the offensively challenged lineup of Beekman and Harris together, with Taine at the 3, and Groves and Buchanan on the floor; so getting points out of this lineup is a boon. Taine runs the baseline screen flare to the corner that Beekman has been fond of this season, which is great to see another player experimenting with different options to create space. He fakes the curl screen, draws his man to try to fight hard over it, then bounces into the corner and takes the pass from Beekman. His man flying at him, Taine shows the pump fake, steps to the side, and drills the three.
I’m reminded of writing earlier in the season lamenting how often our guys were giving a shot fake like this and stepping inside of the line for a long two. I’m pleased to report that, not just Murray but this is a great example of it, we’ve been MUCH improved at sliding to the side in these situations and keeping the shot at the same point value.
This is big, though, especially if CTB is going to continue to play Beekman and Harris together which I’ll talk about in a little bit and still disagree with but appears increasingly likely. You want to be able to squeeze any drop of offense out of that pairing as possible, and this certainly was a way to do so with a player who doesn’t (yet) draw the same level of defensive attention that iMac does on the perimeter.
Here, we’re back with the Small Ball lineup with Reece on the floor. Dunn is at the five and we’re running offset Flow on the top side with Groves as the primary ball screener and the other three players surrounding the arc on the bottom side. Now, there’s a lot I like about this even though it’s generally better to have Dunn be the ball screener in this group as you see his man sagging the lane early. But here’s where we’ve improved a little and Taine was able to help take advantage. Firstly, when Beekman drives the lane, Dunn does exactly what we’ve been talking about in recent reviews (and will discuss later) – he dives to the rim. This pulls his man and creates a vacuum behind which Taine is able to take his drive. Dunn’s man is able to interfere with the Beekman drive a little, but does have to drop and shade the cut, and when Beekman kicks it out, Murray fills a very similar pathing that Dunn just took. Dunn being close to the hoop and with his man having to stay closer to him down there, Murray is able to fill the space and finish with that same little runner.
I do think that some of this is because GT is a smaller team and doesn’t have that great rim protection; but it’s still a big deal to have this element at play. McKneely often has to settle for the jump shot when he gets into the lane, Rohde can’t often get the separation to get a clean shot, and Harris often struggles to finish in traffic. Murray represents just enough in all of these areas to offer an improved threat to take select opportunities and get them all the way to the rim, augmented by the fact that you cannot give him space.
Okay, here’s the play on which Dunn hurt himself; but it was a nice play! We’re in transition on the secondary break and McKneely passes the ball ahead to Dunn, streaking toward the hoop. Now, personally, I think you get a charge virtually every single time if you go up strong and try to lay this up or dunk it here if you’re Dunn. His man was not in position at all, running to get back into the play. But, still, watch before the pass at about 4 seconds into the clip the spacing that Groves and Murray represent here in the corner and on the wing. GT sending three guys into the lane to recover and not just being completely on point in their transition defense gets punished as Dunn kicks it out to Taine who draws the defender and makes the extra pass into Groves for the open look from the corner.
Aside from the sea of humanity in the lane (which, how was nothing called there?), that’s pretty basketball! Murray had three assists in this game and we’ve seen two of them as just working with good chemistry with Groves on the perimeter.
Murray was just solid and, at times, very opportunistically good – like here where he absolutely punishes GT for allowing us to get the long offensive rebound.
That shot was at probably one of the more important parts of this game, as well, as Dunn was playing hurt for the first part of the second half and it had allowed GT to narrow the lead to single digits again. Taine’s shot there pushed the lead back up to 12 and we never dropped below double-digits again.
I thought this play was a solid one from him, below, as it illustrated good vision and a good feel for the game, even though it didn’t yield points for us. In Sides, Taine takes a pass out of a curl screen, holds his dribble around the elbow, which holds Buchanan’s man, sagging off of him. Meanwhile, Buchanan is setting the flare screen for Beekman at the point. With his man clogging the lane to stop Taine from driving, Beekman comes free after the flare, and Taine not only reads it, but he leads him to a clean run to the hoop, not a deeper pass that would take away his momentum. Beekman tries to dump this off to Dunn rather than going up at the rim and GT deflects the pass out of bounds, but it was a very good opportunity that was set up through Taine’s control of the offense and vision.
This is an area in which it feels like Murray has improved even from the beginning of the season. Earlier in the year, it felt like he looked to just keep the ball moving quickly and wasn’t looking beyond the pass right in front of him. It felt on Saturday as though the game had slowed down for him a bit offensively.
Here’s another element that was an improvement. This isn’t just a North-South drive with an attempt at the rim; this is a straight up isolation play from the point out of Sides – all the more important because it’s another situation where he was playing with both Harris and Beekman. As we run the offense through here, Murray passes to Beekman on the top wing and runs off of a flare screen from Buchanan, only to come right back for the ball, looking to curl into the lane. GT is able to get over this screen and defend it, cutting off of his drive, but rather than passing the ball to Beekman and making him isolate with the shot clock running down, Murray takes the opportunity himself, spinning off of his man, drawing a flow, and hitting the fadeaway jumper.
Now, I don’t want to make it seem like Taine is going to be able to make this specific play against any opponent. GT is not a good defensive team… but the confidence for him to do so was important. This is definitely the kind of thing we’ll need to start to take some of the burden off of Reece to always be the one to make this play, and is exactly what I was talking about after the Duke game of letting our offense be created from other places at times. It makes us harder to defend if Taine can take the occasional opportunity like this at the end of a shot clock and get a decent look.
I even liked the way he broke the press! He’s strong with the ball in this clip, below, after the catch, and looks comfortable beating his man across half court.
I put this clip in here because this (the perception of his handle and ability to navigate pressure) is a big reason that Rohde has played as much as he has over the season. Now, while this might not be the same kind of pressure that a Memphis or a FSU is bringing full court, it’s worth pointing out that Taine had no problem breaking it and, really, that he looked comfortable putting the ball on the deck all game.
Now the thing to keep an eye on moving forward is still going to be this; defense. Here he gets switched onto George and we pay for it with him getting taken off of the dribble. His jump to contest the shot was almost comically late here.
But, in 28 minutes played, this was really the most glaring instance. Some of that was matchup-related and who GT was playing through offensively, but whatever the reason, as long as he’s not being targeted or giving up points regularly, which he wasn’t in this game, it’s been a good trade off to have him out there.
There’s a good chance this is where CTB is going to lean heading into the conference tournament re: his wing playing time and, at least with regard to Taine and Rohde, I think he’s landed on the right call to close this season.
Offensive Wrinkles
CTB mentioned adding some offensive wrinkles into this one, and here what I found that was different compared to what we have recently been doing. It was mostly some different actions stemming from our base sets.
This first set is with our Small Ball lineup with Dunn at the 5 and McKneely, Murray, and Groves complimenting Beekman. We start the set out like we’re going to run the roll and replace, which is a good set for this offense if Dunn can set good screens. Only, instead of having iMac on the baseline for the replace action, it’s Groves with iMac in the corner. Dunn presents like he’s going to set the ball screen – basically we’re presenting/faking the roll and replace, but instead McKneely sets a screen for Groves to go to the corner with his man hanging out under the hoop. GT quasi switches and GT over recovers to Groves, and McKneely probably could have slipped that screen to the basket for a layup or dunk. Instead, we kick it back out to Beekman and this time he does run the roll and replace with Dunn as the primary ball screener and McKneely now being back in the correct position to pull his man to the point. Groves is probably open for a kick out because his man leaves to help on Dunn’s roll, but Beekman confidently elevates into an elbow jumper and sinks it.
So, this is really a pretty small thing but it is a wrinkle built into a recent wrinkle. It was the B.C. game where they played this lineup (with Rohde instead of Murray and Buchanan instead of Dunn) and ran roll and replace for many possessions in a row to great effect. Having a good lineup on the floor for it again, this time they fake it to set up another look and when that doesn’t work, just go right back to it for the actual set.
Here is an absolutely crazy finish by Beekman and it’s out of a version of Flow but not one they’ve run in a while. It starts out looking like Sides with a pin down screen by Minor to free McKneely on the wing, but you’ll notice that they’re running this in isolation and it’s not being mirrored on the other side. In fact, Groves is stationary in the corner and Murray is creeping up to the wing, starting well behind the play. McKneely plays a weak two-man game with Minor, eventually passing it to him in the mid-post prior to immediately taking the pass back. As McKneely is resetting, Groves sets a back screen for Murray to send him to the corner and then another for Beekman to flare him to the wing, taking the pass from McKneely himself. Murray cuts through baseline to the opposite corner as Groves hands the ball back to Beekman and fades to the corner himself. With McKneely on the wing now, Minor comes up to set a ball screen for Beekman who uses it, forces the switch, and then eventually takes his man one-on-one for the wild finish.
This isn’t anything revolutionary with regard to our Flow offense, but the baseline cut through action as well as the screening actions around the perimeter are all older actions we’ve historically run more with our ball screen offenses as opposed to the more recent versions where our off-ball players are mostly static. It’s not revolutionary, but it does serve to create some more distraction so that everyone’s not locked onto the ball screen, create the opportunity for those players to be open, and not make it always as obvious where the screen is coming from.
Okay, here’s another one is a really subtle difference out of Sides. For one, we’re back in Wide-Sides which we ran earlier in the season, likely when we thought Rohde was going to be more of an outside shooting threat. With three shooters on the floor plus Reece who will launch when open, we’ve dusted it off. By “Wide Sides” I mean that the mirrored screening action is taking place out on the wings rather than closer to the lane, creating more space for pick and pops and driving actions. Buchanan sets a wide screen for McKneely who curls to the lane, taking the pass for Reece. He and Buchanan are really two-on-one here with Blake’s man who has sagged off of him. This is where McKneely really has an opportunity to grow as a player next year, as I’d like to see him be able to really push the envelope on this advantage and get something moving toward the rim either for himself or on an assist to Blake. It works out for the best here, though, as he kicks the ball back out to Beekman and then rather than going back into screening action, immediately just pops back out to the point, takes the return pass and sinks the three.
This worked so well because McKneely’s initial man had already scrambled so hard to get back into the play against Buchanan, switching with the Center who was torn between switching back and not being used to (or necessarily capable of) playing IMK with the blanket coverage he’s been getting. The screen happening farther away from the bucket here is a big part of this but so is having Groves and Murray on the back side of this play. Their men could not offer much help and leave them out there, so McKneely had more room to operate. If Dunn is on the other side setting that screen for Murray, his man is just camping the lane here and it clutters everything up eliminating the numbers advantage.
This last look is something a good deal different. Watch the beginning of this play – you have both Minor and Groves setting up staggered ball screens for Beekman on the wing. Pause the clip at 4 seconds, you’ll see both there in a line. Minor sets the first screen on Beekman’s man, the 6’9″ Tafara Gapare (#5) who has picked him up in transition. Minor’s own man is sagging in the lane and so Minor rolls right away to occupy him. But then Groves goes to set a screen on Gapare but when he and Beekman’s initial man, the 6’3″ Kyle Sturdivant (#1) attempt to switch back, Groves flips the screen and screens Sturdivant, now forcing the switch back to where it already was to begin with. This allows Beekman to drive on Gapare, draw help from Ndongo (#11) who was still covering Minor, and find Jordan in the paint so that he can finish strongly at the rim.
With the other three looks, they’re all things either we used to do a while ago or are small wrinkles on something we’ve done recently. But I haven’t seen us run many double ball screens and there’s a lot of different action that you can play with out of that which is hard to defend for defenses that aren’t incredibly well-oiled machines. In that one, Minor screens and dives and Groves fakes the first screen to set one going the other way. When you think about it, they already had the switch with Gapare on Beekman to begin… so they could have just cleared out and let him go one-on-one – but all of the actions forced communication from GT, got them to relax on what they thought was a switch back to original men, only to be put right back in the same position. Including Minor in the play along with the Groves screening action also kept Ndongo leveraged on Minor longer as Beekman was setting up the drive.
I don’t know how much they drilled this or how willing they are to keep going back to it – but there’s a lot you can do here out of this set, especially with Groves as one of the screeners along with another big because you can dive him to the hoop or pick and pop with him and he’s setting better ball screens than one of your other guards would (often double screen actions are set with a big and a shooter, and in this case Groves can be both the shooter and a second big). With enough repetition, you can start setting up certain patterns and then playing off of them and countering how the defense adjusts, etc. It’ll be interesting to see if we see this kind of double ball screen set moving forward and how well the guys play off of each other running it.
Dunn Diving/Driving
I just want to quickly point out that GT sagged off of Dunn about as aggressively as I’ve seen a team do this season, but he was much more consistent about filling that space with dives or drives when he was out there (though he did NOT take mane wide-open looks at the three-point line). You’ll see more examples from other clips, so just keep an eye on it, but I did want to pull a couple of quick looks just to draw more attention to it.
Here’s a look from very early in the game; one where Beekman just didn’t see him and tried to hit a floater himself after getting into the lane. We’re running early offense Flow on the break, Buchanan sets a good ball screen, Beekman gets into the lane, Dunn’s man sags the lane to help, and he cuts from the corner on time.
Beekman probably could have had two on a lob to either Buchanan or Dunn on this play and just needs to be more mindful of it since Dunn seems to be doing it more regularly.
And here’s a great look at how far off of him GT was playing – absolutely daring him to shoot – and the great counter by taking up that space with his dribble and then executing the pretty drop step and finish.
In my opinion, it should really be almost every time unless there’s something designed. If your man sags as part of help defense, run to the rim, if he sags when you have the ball, drive it in on him and get a shot at the rim.
As I mentioned earlier, we’re not going to be able to just start going to Small Ball lineups. It’s not viable against Clemson if we play them, it’s not viable against Duke or UNC, or most teams we will realistically play in the ACC Tournament. So Dunn looking to aggressively attack defenses cheating by going to the rim with or without the ball is going to be absolutely essential while he’s on the floor.
Beekman Hunting Jumper
Another quick hitter that I’m not going to spend a ton of time on but really liked to see on Saturday was Beekman feeling confident taking his shot. He’s already the focal point of the offense, especially with some of the augmented shooting lineups; but if he’s not shy about his own looks from out there, not just getting into the lane, then that keeps options open both when players like Taine Murray and Ryan Dunn do decide to drive, but also in those instances which I’m about to talk about when Harris is on the floor with him. They haven’t played well together offensively; but Reece acting like the shooting guard when they do will help.
Here’s a great example in the clip below. This is in transition and we run it into Sides. McKneely is on the floor, actually bringing the ball up the floor this time, with Beekman, Harris, Buchanan, and Dunn. Dunn and Harris are the duo on the top side, and that’s about as bad of a shooting combo as we can offer up there, allowing their help defenders to mostly cheat as much as they want to. Buchanan sets the screen for Beekman, but rather than curling into that mess, he sets up like he’s going to use the screen going toward McKneely, his man jumps under the Buchanan screen, and Reece backs out to the three-point line and drills the shot.
There’s so much baked into such a simple play. For one, this could be McKneely down there and Reece could be bringing the ball up the floor – but GT would play that differently and stay plastered to McKneely, daring him to drive into the maw of the defense rather than risk an open look from deep. Reece still gets the opposite treatment. But it also shows great awareness and confidence from Reece that there isn’t going to be much for him going into that lane; so the fact that he sets up the screen to create the outside shot not only shows his confidence to do so, but great situational awareness on who he’s playing with and what’s needed in that moment.
Often this season I’ve talked about us going through the motion with some of our offenses, especially Sides and how we’re making it easier for defenses to guard us, yes through who is on the floor, but in how rarely we’ve been ad-libbing, reading the defense, and reacting to what they’re doing/what’s needed. Reece has always done this well; he’s a master of this offense, but this is a bit of a different role for him doing that – and we’re also starting to see some guys like Taine with his flare to the corner, McKneely with his pop out after his curl to the middle, Dunn with his reacting and diving all looking just a little more comfortable in how we’re playing within these sets. Yes, that’s helped by GT being the defense, but I also think it was helped by the improved spacing and the improved intuition/adaptation.
Okay, and this is just a straight pull-up in transition when your man sags/tries to cheat under a ball screen.
That’s a player who is shooting with confidence and who is keeping his defender from being able to try to cheat on his drive; generally his most lethal offensive weapon. Side note: Harris is also on the floor here. Super Side-Note: up 20 with 6 minutes to go, rarely do you see our guys hunt a shot like this in transition when it’s given. You’d more likely see us pull it back out and milk the clock. Perhaps that would actually have been the smarter play here; but it is likely a sign that CTB’s recently discussed messaging around playing free and taking open looks seems to be taking! Definitely a good time for that to be the case, if true.
Dante Harris Quickness
Alright, I’m going to close by focusing on some positives with Dante Harris’s game from Saturday.
“Wait, what the heck, Cuts? You’ve spent quite a bit of games discussing how detrimental Harris’s minutes have been, especially when paired with Beekman, and he got 16 minutes in this one, many of which were with Beekman!?!?”
Why yes, that’s true my good friend, and thank you for having read my stuff enough to know that. Some of this is closing out this piece with the ultimate silver linings and positive vibes… but some of it is that it actually looked a little different on Saturday. Harris looked quicker, to me, than he has at any point post-ankle injury. He was more bothersome and, more importantly, not intentionally targeted on defense, and he created a few opportunities on offense that were closer to what we saw from him early in the year and that we haven’t recently.
Here he is just beating everyone through the lane and finishing that little leaner over his out-stretched defender.
This was actually a pretty crazy opportunity that he created out of nothing for Buchanan, who was blocked at the end of the shot clock. Nothing came of it on the stat sheet, because Blake didn’t finish and Dunn’s man was in good help position because of his sagging; but this was a ton of separation that Harris got off of the dribble and he had the wherewithal that when he drew both defenders to contest his jumper, he broke it off and whipped it right to Blake.
I mean, that’s a layup/dunk in most situations just ahead of the shot clock expiring that started with Harris getting the ball on the wing with no advantage after a broken play.
And then there was this where he’s running Sides as the PG with Beekman on the floor and takes a pass off of a flare screen set by Buchanan, and absolutely blisters by both defenders for a clean reverse layup.
We definitely haven’t seen that kind of explosiveness, above, from Harris since prior to his injury and, after watching this I wrote in my notes, “Ankle back?”
Not sure, but it looked like it, and he was also able to create a turnover just pressuring up on a dribble hand off right here:
This was much more Dante Harris “as advertised,” in the sense that we often hear about his on-ball defense but that hasn’t actually been asset over the second half of the year and we haven’t seen many splash plays like this from him. If anything, we’ve seen teams post him up and target him off of the dribble. This game definitely had a different feeling on that end where the Beekman/Harris duo felt more intrusive and formidable on the defensive end than it had previously.
So, yeah. The jury is still out on this one and I’m not advocating for it… at all, really, but certainly not as one of our stronger combinations. Even pre-injury, the Beekman/Harris combo was one of our worst in terms of two-player efficiency. BUT, I am saying it may not be as harmful of a duo or combination of lineups, as it was over the final stretch of the season and it may offer some surprising things down the stretch. There’s room for optimism that Dante will be a better on-ball defender than he has shown from here and that he has the potential to be more explosive on offense than he has been (which isn’t hard the team has really struggled offensively when he’s played).
I also think it’s positive for Harris that Taine played more, and think that playing Taine at the SF when Harris and Beekman share the floor has the potential to be as good, as playing iMac with those two (getting him more rest) because his shooting is still quality but he’s a little bigger and better in that straight-line capacity, and is much better than pairing them with Rohde as the shooting just dries up entirely.
I do think there are signs that Harris looked better on Saturday than he has in a long time and that his minutes can, at least, be more productive than they have been. But, aside from that, in a world where we were playing quite a bit of he and Rohde together over significant stretches recently, sometimes with Reece as well, and those stretches were absolutely killing us on the scoreboard, scaling back on half of that equation and introducing a more complimentary offensive player more fully into the mix will help by itself.
In Conclusion
Georgia Tech’s defense is bad and I don’t think we should fool ourselves into thinking that we all of a sudden solved this; but they had won 4 of 5 including some wins against very talented teams. There are still many possible pitfalls we could self-impose, like leaning back into Small Ball too heavily against teams that should, and likely will, punish it. Or like getting scared off of a player like Taine if he has a defensive lapse or two. BUT, this is a piece for optimism and I am genuinely feeling positive that we’ve taken some useful strides in a short period of time. You want to go into the postseason playing well and also not having anything within your control capping your ceiling. And while I don’t think we got fully there on the latter point, I do think we’re trending MUCH more positively in that regard than we were even just two contests ago.
I’d love to win on Thursday and then draw Duke on Friday, not only because of what that would mean for our prospective NCAA Tournament hopes, but because it should be a good gauge as to how real these good vibes are.
Author’s note: I won’t have the time to do reviews after each game we play in the ACC or (hopefully) NCAA Tournament. I’m going to watch all of the ACC Tournaments games (hopefully we play more than one) and then try to get reviews out for each prior to our next postseason contest, whenever that is. Thank you again for coming along with me on this ride this season – it’s been volatile but fun. Here’s hoping we get to experience another NCAA Tournament together next week!
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