In my State of The Program piece, I wrote about a lot of issues facing the program at the moment and many changes that need to be made to move forward in a positive direction. This is the piece where I write about what I’d like to see happen for the new year, both philosophically and in player usage. Building off of some of those thoughts from earlier this offseason is a good thought exercise, but made even more challenging by the fact that we don’t really have a good sense yet of how much change is coming, if any. Given our history under CTB, I’m betting it will be less dramatic than if I had my druthers, as most of the time we do something that waivers from the norm (I’m thinking about the 5-Out offense in 2021 or anytime we show glimpses of playing at a faster pace, specifically), it’s typically pretty short-lived. Nevertheless, we’ve heard throughout the offseason that CTB has been verbalizing the willingness to change things up more than ever, both internally and externally when speaking with recruits; and even more recently there’s a distinct sense that there is some semblance of change brewing. The Play-In loss against Colorado State came in such a way that it’s feasible it could actually move the needle this time. That being said, this specific piece is about documenting what I’d like to see happen for the coming year, not necessarily what I think is likely to happen, and then after the fact I can revisit and see what seemed insightful vs. what seemed misguided… and then attempt to learn from that. So, my hope here is to first discuss what I’d like to see us move more to offensively, focus on playing time, and then I’ll wrap with a few add-on thoughts about combinations of players that might work best with what we’ve done historically.
In last year’s piece, I wrote a lot about updating our playing time philosophy, specifically around redshirting talented players and going deeper into our bench to allow younger guys more time to grow on the floor. It was a bit of a mixed result last year, erring on the side of the wrong direction. Blake Buchanan played just over 15 minutes per game – much more than I had hoped for – although this was amplified by the surprising lack of confidence in Jordan Minor early in the season. Anthony Robinson did redshirt, as he was one of the players I hoped would; and Christian Bliss reclassified for the purpose of having a redshirt season – all three of these were very positive developments….
Unfortunately, we did initially attempt to redshirt Elijah Gertrude, only to pull his redshirt due to an injury to Dante Harris, only to go back away from Gertrude for most of the close to the season. This was despite the flashes that Gertrude showed when he played and despite the glaring struggles in our backcourt between Andrew Rohde’s shooting, Taine Murray’s defense, and Dante Harris’s overall game. So much so, that our postseason assessment of Harris was that we needed to have the hard conversation with him about a lack of opportunity next year… and yet we still refused to play Elijah over him down the stretch. The news about Eli’s injury this offseason was devastating, and he now has an entirely new hurdle to clear prior to taking the court. But, assuming he had his health, he would have been in a much better situation this year if we had handled him differently.
This year we have incoming 6’5″, sharpshooter SG/SF Ishan Sharma and 6’10” potential stretch PF/C Jacob Cofie who fall into this category. I’ll make a case for both to play, but this will not be the primary focus of my lead up.
What I do want to talk about are what the different pieces on the roster offer and then how best to put them in action considering some different offensive options. It should go without saying that we’re not going to move away from the Pack Line; although we may have to accept being more “work in progress” with certain elements of it if we’re, hopefully, going to be spending more time practicing offense.
Investing in Offense
I’m not going to use this time to create an entire offensive system from scratch and break down every single offensive option or play to insert within it. That would be a pretty unmanageable task; and it wouldn’t really be meaningful to talk about. But what I can and will do is talk about some various offensive systems or concepts that I think we should be implementing and that could likely work well for what we have.
First, let’s talk about what our three core offenses have been over the years: There’s Sides (which is what it’s currently called, historically called “Blocker-Mover”), Inside Triangle (often called “3-Man” by the team), and Flow (which has described our set of continuity ball screen offenses; used more statically in recent years). If you need a refresher on any of these offenses, please follow those links, as I’ll be referencing them from here.
Of these three, I’d like to see us scrap Sides and Inside Triangle entirely – perhaps aside from the occasional curveball look, but likely altogether. Sides has been CTB’s comfort zone over the years, but the modern game of basketball has moved beyond it. By its nature, it creates too many midrange jump shots or runners as guys curl around off ball screens:
And in the rare cases we do get the ball into the post, or off of drives, it’s too easy for weak side bigs to sag off of their man (based on their positioning around the elbow or onto the block) to get into plays. Dunn post move aside, notice in this play, below, how Groves brings his man right into easy help side position under the rim so Dunn going toward the hoop would be met with stiff resistance.
And it’s not like Groves wasn’t a shooting threat – he was one of our best outside shooters! It’s just the structure of the offense that lends to suboptimal spacing.
The Inside Triangle has a few more applications in the modern day, but unless you have a post player who benefits from getting mismatches off of switches and being able to score with his back to the basket (think Anthony Gill, they used to use this set a lot to either just post him or to generate a switch and then post him)…
Unless Buchanan or Robinson really surprise with just a polished low post game (which we haven’t really seen much of from our player development and/or intentional offense lately) then this really just doesn’t seem like the way to go. The most common way to defend the defense is just to switch the screens and clog the lane and, even if we’re playing a small ball lineup with all shooters (which I’ll talk about in more detail later), there are more reliable ways to create space around the rim and to maximize outside shooting opportunities.
Now, I definitely think there are applications for our Flow offense still, but not so much as we currently run it – which is more as an attempt at a quick bucket at a beginning of a possession prior to moving into one of the other two offenses. We have trended toward running it with players away from the ball screen playing more stationary. We’ll have two shooters in either corner, a man on the wing in the slot, and then a big to set a ball screen for our primary ball handler. This is fine as a one off and when teams are playing our shooters honestly (which they should have to this year 2-4 in most lineup combinations), it can work:
In fact, the single biggest reason that Blake Buchanan had such an anomaly of a blow-up game against Florida last year was because teams hadn’t yet figured out to cheat off of some of our players on the wing, and which ones were safe to do so. We do have the pieces to run these kinds of looks effectively next year between Dai Dai Ames or Jalen Warley running the point with Blake Buchanan or Anthony Robinson acting as the ball screener/rim runner, virtually anyone one else in that guard/wing/forward realm (McKneely, Murray, Sharma, Bliss, Rohde, Saunders, Power… potentially even Cofie) should be threatening enough to keep defenses honest and to be able to punish missteps regularly enough. But, one screening action does not a base offense make, and even if this is just one of our core offenses, which it should ideally be, we’ll need to add layers into the screening actions to present enough different looks off of which to play.
We did this cursorily very late in the season last year as our offensive struggles become more pronounced; including one prominent stretch against Boston College where we ran Roll and Replace with Isaac McKneely as the “replacer”:
It worked really well when we used it; the problem was that the lineups we had to trot out in order to use it were some of our worst defensively, and it was usually just correct to play Dunn and/or Minor. But, as long as we are playing one of our two Centers as the primary ball screener, this season there shouldn’t have to be the same level of offensive/defensive trade off; primarily due to Elijah Saunders’s capability as an outside shooter and defensive flexibility to play either the SF or PF.
I’d also like to see us continue to layer more options into this, like using Spain screen concepts which would be another way to allow a player like Isaac McKneely, or maybe even Taine Murray who can probably set a decent screen or two, to be involved in the play with different wrinkles. You could even use Saunders or TJ Power as the second screener in these kinds of looks to make them even more imposing, while using your other guards as the corner kick out options. There’s a lot you can play with here.
Some of these adaptations don’t even have to be overly complex; like we could add more “Shake” actions into the mix where the weak side corner player slides up to the wing on the drive/roll. It’s not like we never did this last season – sometimes guys naturally did it to help with balance or reading a defense, but it was inconsistent and didn’t often feel intentional. Basically, we just need a portfolio of variations within a ball screen offense like this that our guys are practiced at running and off of which they feel comfortable playing. We need versatility and polish. Our challenges haven’t just been a personnel issue, although that has been a problem, it’s been a variation of looks/static player issue.
So that’s base option one, and it would be for offenses that include one traditional Center, one of either Ames or Warley, and then it could be a combination of one or both of Saunders/Power and the slew of guards/wings to follow. I also really like incorporating this because it’s widespread in use and it’s not overly complex. Yes, you have to practice it, and you’ll need to spend time with the variations (which hopefully we could continue to introduce throughout the season), but where players need to be on the floor and what they should be doing is still relatively straightforward. This would hopefully mean that we could spend a little more time refining some other options.
The next set I’d like us to look at implementing would be more situational based on lineup, we could go to it playing Saunders and Power at the 4/5 if we had to – but I’ll advocate later that we could also consider using Cofie as the 5 with these kinds of looks to keep a more robust defensive presence on the floor. Now, I am NOT high on those being high-usage lineups for many reasons, mostly defensive (although Cofie mitigates that some); but we would be remiss if we didn’t have a package to trot this out against certain matchups and take advantage of a team that could shoot 1-5 (or, at least 2-5 if Warley was running the offense). With this group, I’d like to see us bring back and stick with a 5-Out style offense. You can still play pick and roll out of these type of options (as shown in that video for some examples), you can still run some of the actions I’ll talk about a little later, but you have more versatility in how you can get into it. You can run more effective ghost screens because of the number of shooters, you can set up wide pin down screens that could replicate Sides (if we were still running it some… which, as much as I want to scrap it entirely – the likelihood is we’ll still have it in our playbook)… there are just a lot of options that you can craft and design around this idea of positionless basketball where everyone or just about everyone is a threat to shoot from deep.
Now, saving the best for last, the set of actions I’d most like to see us incorporate for this coming season is a continuity-style offense based around zoom screen and dribble hand-off actions and subsequent play around that. Or, at the very least, a healthy portfolio of plays that we could run with these actions that build off of each other. These are sets that we could run with any combination of our lineups and, most specifically, would probably allow us to get away with some of the lineup combinations that I fear most; like playing Ames and Warley together. This is almost like modernizing our Sides, but with a larger variety of actions, with more difficult sets to defend, and with much more of the action leading toward our players getting the ball moving with speed toward the basket (or at least parallel to it) rather than so much bringing our momentum away from the hoop. Having more players capable of attacking downhill after getting the ball would be an added boon and you could hide non (or lesser) shooters like Warley, Ames (and even Rohde if you wanted) within some of the screening action to occupy their men when they didn’t have the ball. The downside is that this would be the most complicated series of actions to implement and would take the most time and resources to execute well. The upside is that it’s more similar to how CTB likes to have his offenses function strategically (and in player skillsets such as prioritizing movement offenses that value playmaking and ball handling).
Now, is it realistic to expect we could implement all three of these base offenses in one offseason (or that we’d even be able to sustain all three long term, given NCAA roster turnover)? Probably not – but that also depends on how much time you’re willing to invest in the offense. I’m describing my ideal state. More realistically, if you could implement a lot of the zoom/dho sets and then use the ball screen options as your alternate set of looks, you’d have at least two distinct different and versatile systems that could work AND there would be no combination of players you could (realistically) play that wouldn’t have at least one offense well-suited for it. The 5-Out option could be shelved for this year and revisited for even more heavy big shooting lineups down the road where you wouldn’t have to sacrifice defense to play them (but of course I’d love to have all three, if we could).
I should reiterate here that this is all based on hope and not based on anything I’m hearing directly. I don’t expect, based on historical precedent, radical changes. But, it DOES sound like there’s been a greater emphasis on the offense so far this offseason and there is legitimate smoke that some new stuff is coming. We can and should remain hopeful that there will be new developments and continue to outline what we’d like to see. At the end of this, though, I will add some additional thoughts about player combinations that might compliment what we’ve done in the past.
Alright, given the above, it’s that time go through the individual players, provide my ideal minute average, and give the rationale. Keeping in mind, there’s a hard cap at 200 minutes per game because we’re not assuming OT. Again, this is about what I’d LIKE to see happen, it’s not what I think the most probable outcome is. The point of this is to offer my take on ideal strategy/approach. Last year’s run through this exercise can be found here.
I normally only talk about scholarship players here, but I will make one exception this year given a preferred walk-on who seems to be on the radar of many a fan. Also, I should be clear that these aren’t predictive averages. Certainly, some of these players will see more/less time in blow out games and as CTB plays with rotations throughout the beginning of the season so the actual year-end averages will not be the below. And I’d also like to clarify, for a couple of the players who I have listed as 0mpg, I do want them to get PT throughout the early part of the season. There are a lot of viable options for minutes this year and, even though I’ll be making the case to expand the rotation outside of a normal 8 core guys, not everyone will be able to get run as we get into the meat of the season. This is a reflection of where I think the dust should likely settle once the rotation has been tightened. One last disclaimer – this is still predictive, perhaps more so than usual, because a lot of our guys are young so I’m relying on what I’ve seen in the past, think is likely for upside, heard this offseason, and believe the team would thrive most tapping into. Just like for this past season, I’ll revisit next offseason and try to objectively assess how I did.
Elijah Gertrude (6’4″ Sophomore, Combo Guard)
0 MPG – Medical Redshirt
One of the most disappointing (for him more than us, I’m sure) pieces of news to come in over the offseason was the off-court injury to Elijah Gertrude. He will be out for the entire season so there’s no flexibility here. I wrote after this past season how I believe Gertrude was incorrectly underutilized last season after Dante Harris returned from his injury, so it’s really disappointing that he won’t be able to build off of his health and carry that momentum into this season. Instead, Eli is going to be recovering again and we can only hope that he keeps both his morale and determination high as he works to get back for next season. Get well, Eli!
Carter Lang (6’9″ Sophomore, Power Forward)
0 MPG
I don’t normally include walk-ons in these and I didn’t include Carter in my Tracking a Transfer pieces… but he left Vanderbilt last season after playing in 24 games, starting 7, averaging 11.5mpg, 1.8 points per game and 3.5 rebounds per game. As a Charlottesville native who got 7 starts for a Power 5 school and was a former three-star recruit, just outside of the top 150 on many lists, there has been some discussion around whether or not he could have a role for this upcoming season. Not to be indelicate, but I hope not. If he does, then that likely means something has gone wrong with Anthony Robinson (whose potential I’m quite high on) or that Jacob Cofie has redshirted (something I’d very much like to avoid). Lang is a fantastic guy to have as a “break glass in case of emergency” player and will be invaluable as a much higher talent level in practice on the Green Team (scout team). Having a former scholarship player take a walk-on slot does wonders for your ability to practice competitively and should help with the growth of all of our guys. That being said, Vanderbilt was one of the worst Power 5 schools in the country last year, and Lang was a DNP in 8 of their games, seeing most of his time early in the year against easier opponents and having his role reduced greatly as the season wore on. There just isn’t the upside here to invest in minutes, and the specific role (not suited to be a Center and only took 1 three-point shot last season) is also not a good fit. Let’s just be thankful that Lang decided to return home and will be fantastic for practice/an emergency body that can still matchup physically. But, if you’re a fan of local hoops in Charlottesville and you’re thinking, “he could be something for us,” then I would recommend tempering those thoughts.
Christian Bliss (6’4″ Redshirt Freshman, Point Guard)
0 MPG
I know this one is going to cause some disappointment or outright resistance and I, who have preached the value of positional size and shooting am shocked to have landed here with a 6’4″ PG who has the reputation as a decent shooter who has already had a year in our system. And yet, here we are. I want to be very clear – I want Bliss to get run early in the season and, if he is playing well, then I’ll rescind this desire; but indications from a wide variety of sources are that he doesn’t seem ready just yet. And, while that may be disappointing, it’s not that surprising. Yes, he’s a redshirt with a year in the system – but he re-classified for the purpose of redshirting; bypassing his senior year of high school. Developmentally, he would still be a true Freshman this season had he stuck to a normal schedule. Additionally, he had ankle surgery last February and was dealing with that recovery for a time. It could be that he’s just not quite fully there from that and there will be significant improvement as we get closer to first tip off. It doesn’t help matters that he’s caught in an awkward situation positionally. He’s a PG with two incoming PGs on the roster who have more experience (in Warley’s case, much more) at the P5 level who should both be more impactful contributors this season. Can Bliss play off the ball or as a secondary facilitator? Maybe. That was my hope coming into this season prior to really crunching the minutes and getting my ear to the ground. In reality, we have a slew of guys better-suited to convert those open looks (and all of them would add more size). So, if he is reportedly not quite there yet, there’s really not a need to rush him out there and doing so would represent a quality loss for a more ready/complete player. So, what about the long-term opportunity cost that I always discuss? If Bliss plays sparingly this season, is he a flight risk (more so than anyone is during this era) and, if so, what is that impact? I also feel surprisingly comfortable here. Bliss seems pretty bought into the program from his re-classification to redshirt to general knowledge about his mindset. He did his due diligence before committing; reaching out to past players who have left the program and getting their input. Jalen Warley leaves after this season and, aside from Ames who Bliss could likely split time with or even play alongside down the road, there’s still a clarity toward opportunity here. Of course, we could always land a big recruit or a transfer in the portal next year who could play over him – but if the player was that talented or promising, that’s not a bad problem for us to have. And, candidly, while I love the potential of Bliss as a big PG (I love a big PG!) who can shoot and facilitate; he still has the reputation as being more wily than explosive and not quite there on the quickness side. His upside is going to be tied to his polish and skill so, if he’s lagging there, that will have to blossom prior to seeing the court. To be as direct as possible, while I am optimistic about what Bliss can be and I don’t think he would be “behind” if he doesn’t get much run this year, it’s still worth keeping in mind that most of our impactful PGs get run early in their careers for CTB. Given all of that, I don’t think that the risk of losing him would be so great that we should play him over better options this season. Basically, get his feet wet against live competition in winnable games, let him practice against two very different PGs every day, and then either see if he’s ready to step into the bigger role next season while simultaneously exploring other options/the potential for upgrades.
Andrew Rohde (6’6″ Junior, Combo Guard)
0 MPG
When I write these, I’m constantly trying to reiterate that it’s not what I think will happen; it’s what I believe would be ideal (I’ve said that a bunch already and, inevitably, someone’s going to say “how can you think CTB won’t play Rohde at all after he played him so much last season?”. I don’t think that. I do think Rohde is going to see time this year plain and simple. And even though I’m listing him at 0 MPG in my “wants” article, I do think that needs some additional clarification. Last year, I thought Rohde took some unfair criticism as one of the scape goats of the season from the fanbase. In fact, it was surprising at how extreme the conventional wisdom become around how bad he was and how much he hurt us last year. And it’s not even that there weren’t a lot of elements of truth to much of the criticism – it’s how one-sided and how much lack of nuance there was in the discussion. So, I want to take a little longer in this section and re-litigate the Rohde situation. Here are some things I want to establish:
-He was never the same after the foot injury. Pre-foot injury, Rohde wasn’t setting the world on fire, but he was more effective on both sides of the ball; much quicker in defensive rotations on the back end (where he got torched later in the season) and much more effective off the bounce earlier in the season – like here:
-Rohde’s on/off splits were good. The team scored 7 more points per 100 possessions with him on the floor than when he was on the bench (which was third on the entire team and best among common starters), and his +/- of +99 was the single highest mark on the entire roster. Now, we all know that +/- can be a flawed stat that doesn’t always correlate to the individual player’s direct contributions and I wouldn’t have opened this section with him at 0 minutes per game if I thought he was the key cog to those outputs. BUT, it’s factually incorrect to say that the team did worse when we played Andrew Rohde last year or to over-embellish the negative impact that he had (where, Dante Harris, on the other hand, was a team low -14 with no other player in the negatives, so it would be correct to say that the team did much worse when he played).
-Rohde’s quality of play and ability to contribute fluctuated throughout the season but his minutes didn’t seem to correspond to how well he was playing/trending until very late in the season. This is not a reflection of Rohde’s overall quality, though, but rather a bone to pick with CTB for not being more willing to go to his bench and/or to update his mental portfolio on Rohde.
Where Rohde struggled was on his defensive rotations and, occasionally but less so on-ball (amplified by his foot), with his ability to finish – from his outside shot, to his midrange jumper and, with what little quickness and explosion that he did have (see that change of direction in the clip above) being sapped, he didn’t have the strength to be an effective driver nor finisher. Basically, his ability to convert buckets himself came at a very inefficient clip – which is no small thing.
Now, will all of those things change at full health and with another offseason under his belt? It really is possible, but I’m not convinced it’s enough. His defense should absolutely be better, full stop… but he doesn’t appear to have gained a ton of strength this offseason to help him shrug off opposing Small Forwards, and his shooting accuracy would need to improve not just beyond last year’s abysmal 25.7% from deep last year and 29.3% from the floor (ouch) but well beyond his 32% from deep from his Freshman season at St. Thomas. Furthermore, he’s always been a more effective player at volume. At St. Thomas, he gained more momentum and confidence throughout the season as his number of attempts increased and he seized more control of offensive share. For us last year, he was at his most effective against Texas A&M when he shared PG duties, played a season high 37 minutes, and took 14 shots (still only making 5). But do we really want those things in bulk this year? We have two more capable PGs with one waiting in the wings in Bliss, and we now have many better shooting options who can step into that other guard/forward slot opposite McKneely. In a dream world, perhaps Rohde could be the go-to multi-dimensional scorer/facilitator that this team appears to lack and that would be his role, but it’s hard to think he’ll be able to make the leaps-and-bounds efficiency improvement that would be needed to want that to be the focal point of the offense.
I like that Rohde appears to have bet on himself this offseason and, to be clear, when he’s likely getting minutes this year given CTB’s enthusiasm for playing him last year; I will be lobbying for everyone to give him a watch with clear and open eyes. Let’s give Andrew Rohde a real chance because he absolutely could still be something. But, I don’t think we’re in a position where we need to rely on him this coming season and I believe that the better line is probably going to be to move forward with other options. This was my toughest call writing this.
Ishan Sharma (6’5″ Freshman, Shooting Guard)
10 MPG
Most expect Sharma to be this year’s redshirt candidate and, with the number of players in the rotation and, say, the unlikelihood that someone like Rohde will actually play 0 MPG after averaging over 25 last year and sticking with the program this year, the real odds probably point in that direction. I hope he doesn’t. His shooting is as advertised; daggers from all over the floor. But, way more importantly for his ability to see the floor, it sounds like he’s capable of hanging athletically. My anticipation for Sharma coming into the offseason was that he was a great candidate to redshirt. As an international player he was likely less of a transfer risk, and I anticipated that he would be more of a one-dimensional player who needed this year to develop physically. I no longer believe that’s the case. Adding him into the lineup off of the bench for 1/4th of the game or so (scaling along with the quality of his play) would provide great shooting redundancy with both McKneely and Murray; allowing you to always have the ability to have comparable shooting at the 2-3 when McKneely needs a rest and when you’d like to play two of your guard/wing snipers. He’d offer this without really conceding any positional size. 6’5″ is great for a SG and fine enough for a SF when you’re providing quality floor spacing. I doubt you’d be losing a ton defensively by playing him over Murray. You could keep him on the bench and skew bigger if you were (more on that later), and you’d have that microwave heating potential with his outside shot on any given night. Not even accounting for Saunders or Power yet, I absolutely love the idea of having three pretty comparably sized elite shooters to trot out there either one or two at a time. Furthermore, if we do end up running Sides in any significant sample this season (which is likely), Sharma is a great fit for that offense and his ability to come off of a screen and either shoot from deep or the midrange (especially when defenders are also having to defend either McKneely or Murray doing the same) would fit much better into that structure than who we played last year. Let’s be clear, though, this isn’t me saying that I want us to run much Sides if Sharma is in the rotation!
Jacob Cofie (6’10” Freshman, Power Forward)
10 MPG
Even more than Sharma… I really don’t want to see Cofie redshirt this coming season. In this case, he actually seems less likely to do so, though. Cofie is listed at 6’10” but at 230lbs which already puts him at just 8lbs lighter than the redshirted Anthony Robinson and 5lbs heavier than the listing of Blake Buchanan (who is one inch taller). For perspective, Armando Bacot, known for his strength and physicality in the post, was listed at 6’11”, 240lbs during his Super Senior season. If Cofie’s listing is at all close to accurate, he should be able to at least hang with the physicality at this level. More, Cofie adds needed positional versatility and depth in the frontcourt this season amidst a bunch of unknown entities. Unlike either of our pure Centers, he has the face-up, outside-in, ball skill game to truly facilitate a stretch-5 type of role. Unlike either of our Power Forwards, he’d do so without conceding as much in his ability to defend the interior. Working Cofie into the mix helps you on so many angles and puts so much less strain on your rotations. For example, he’s viable Center insurance if either Buchanan or Robinson aren’t up for the adjustment to starting or rotational roles, respectively, and also takes the burden off of each to eat minutes. He would also eliminate the necessity to play Power or Saunders at the Center (though you still have the option if you’re really pressed… you crazy) without giving up entirely on the ability to play small ball looks. He can play alongside either. Best of all, in my opinion, he can provide Elijah Saunders more opportunity to play the SF if he’s able to spell TJ Power at the PF. So why, you may ask, only play him 10 minutes per game? Wouldn’t he be great to plug in more frequently? Good question, friend. Maybe… maybe. My suspicion is that he’s worse than either of those two groups of players at what they respectively do best – but better than either at filling in for the opposite role. Hence the thought to limit Cofie to 10 mpg at this point as the blanket to fill in the gaps rather than have him as the initial plan at either PF or C. If he were to end up with a higher minutes total than this, he’ll have exceeded my expectations and that will likely be a good thing for us.
Anthony Robinson (6’10” Redshirt Freshman, Center)
15 MPG
Man, am I excited to see Robinson play this year! The general consensus is that he is still raw – recall that he redshirted last year to bulk up (which he has to almost 240lbs) and to polish his game; which it sounds like is still a work in progress. But we hear a LOT about his athleticism. I’ve heard very lofty speculation about his upside when the skill work and confidence catch up to his ability. At the very least, he should be a stout interior defender, a better rim protector and rim runner than we had from any of our Centers last year (Dunn is a different story), and mobile enough to hedge and recover well. He should be able to pressure the glass and set quality screens. All-in-all, I think Robinson is going to be a big part of why we look at our frontcourt this season and are much more impressed by its depth and physical ability to be imposing athletically. I’m jumping ahead a bit, but imagine a lineup with Warley, Saunders, Cofie, and Robinson all on the floor at the same time. That has the potential to be smothering defensively without being illogical on the offensive end (as long as you’ve got iMac in there at the SG). CTB true Centers don’t often play much more than half of the game – even Senior year Jay Huff only averaged 27 mpg – but Robinson providing energy and athleticism for around a 15 minute spurt to spell Buchanan (with Cofie filling in the gaps) should ensure our ability to have a constantly rested, athletic, strong, energetic, interior presence should we so desire (and most of the time, we should!). But, yeah, get ready for Robinson to make a few plays this year that punish the rim and grab everyone’s attention.
Taine Murray (6’5″ Senior, Small Forward)
17 MPG
As someone who spent a lot of time writing about how bad Taine Murray’s defense was his first two seasons (he’s actually one of three players who inspired the first article for this blog and the only one still on the team), and advocating for him not to take many minutes heading into last season, he has provided me with a lot of lessons learned. That is to say, I still believe in the takes re: his defense the first two seasons and don’t think he should have been utilized toward the end of 2022-2023. I’m also unsure in this area of player movement if we necessarily wouldn’t have gotten someone who could contribute more back… but where I was concretely wrong was the conclusion that I drew about his longer-term ability to improve in ways that appeared to be mostly physical limitations. Taine is still not a good or, maybe more accurately, “plus” defender; but he’s no longer a bad defender or a liability who teams are immediately looking to attack. He got better at moving his feet and anticipating drives. He improved at being able to use his strength to lean on and slow down offensive players so that he didn’t have to just keep up with their quickness. He got better at technical things like boxing out and system things like where to be help side so that he didn’t have as much ground to cover when closing out on jump shooters. And it was clear by the midpoint of last year that we would actually benefit from Taine getting more minutes than he was getting! If you’ve followed my stuff, you’ll know that this is a significant evolution of opinion from where I was even one year ago.
Murray shot 45% from three last year, albeit on just 40 attempts, but his ability to stretch the floor compared to most other options we were using at the position along with his occasional ability to make a nice straight-line drive to the hoop added a refreshing pop to an offensive situation that needed it. This year, I think we’re in for some legit, fully actualized, Taine Time. Nothing crazy. Hopefully a little less than half the game; but the word is that he’s actually shown some of the greatest improvement in his game from last year to this. I’d actually love to see Taine at the 2 some this year, backing up McKneely when he needs it. The rare times he did see action there last year, I thought he was as his most successful because his size played more and he looked most comfortable. Of course, he can also play alongside of McKneely (and/or Sharma) for that extra shooting pop that would have some defensive tradeoffs but would likely have many situations where it was worth it. Senior Taine should have the confidence to assert himself a little more and I believe we’ll see a slightly more versatile offensive player (and incrementally improved defensive one) than we have over the past three years.
As an aside, taking the analyst hat off and putting the fan hat on momentarily, I just wanted to say that I really love Taine Murray! In this current world of the portal, this guy is a 4-star recruit who clearly had some offensive talent but whose athleticism didn’t immediately translate to this level. He was across the world from his home, people like me were writing that it was probably time to move on, the staff (rightly) recruited over him in the portal and out of high school… but he just kept grinding. Now, after carving out a legitimate niche for himself in his Junior year, he appears primed to be a significant role player (he may even start though that’s not my desire here). He probably could have played a bigger role on a smaller program, but this is that old school CTB stick with the program and earn mentality and Taine embodies that. It doesn’t change, in any way, how we should view the strategy on the team or in how we should utilize him – but I’ll be rooting hard to have been wrong, and for him to thrive this season. He’s the rare modern day program-grown role player and I have a lot of respect for that even if I don’t necessarily think that how we got here was the optimal allocation of resources. Okay, objectivity hat back on…
Dai Dai Ames (6’1″ Sophomore, Point Guard)
17 MPG
There’s a lot of positive buzz about Ames this offseason. I believe we should start viewing him as our PG of the future. Sure, keep going after as much talent as you can bring in, that always needs to be the approach in the modern recruiting era, but he’s certainly a talented enough player to run the show well for the next two years after this one. He’s a high-quality safety net if Bliss doesn’t emerge internally or if we do not land another splash player at the position. For Ames, I think it’s really just a matter of him being the one to drive while he’s playing. As I wrote in my piece on him, I really like him far better as a true PG than as a combo guard. He doesn’t have the shooting to play that well off the ball (but shot better than Reece from outside last year so he should be able to take advantage of lapses well enough). His strength is making a play with the ball in his hands (and his ability to fit a tight pass in traffic). Now, I outlined above some new offensive looks we might be able to incorporate where he might be able to play alongside Warley more effectively than in our historical offenses – but I’m still not thrilled about those prospects and, again, those are just hypotheticals on which it seems a bit far-fetched to count on us landing. Playing him off the ball is a detriment to our ability to have a quorum of very good shooters on the floor and also likely lessens the size we can trot out on the defensive end. He’s a better on ball defender than McKneely but that’s really the only way defensively in which he’s better and you concede significant shooting. And, if you play the two of them WITH McKneely now there’s additional roster compression. I’m sure it’s going to happen some, but my goal would basically be to have he and Warley spell each other and let each be the guy to set the table when they’re in the game. And I DO want Ames in the game for at least close to half of it. Ames is a very different style of player than Warley defensively and in how they score – but there are also some similarities that allow for them to fill similar roles. Both are at their best getting into the lane and operating in there; picking out teammates, scoring around the basket, taking their man off the bounce. The variety in style but consistency in purpose should allow us to lean into who is playing the best, and to mix and match matchups – that holds a lot of value. Give him a solid role but don’t over-rely on him. Position him to grab the reins for the next two years after if he’s able to seize the opportunity.
Blake Buchanan (6’11” Sophomore, Center)
20 MPG Starter
My hope for Blake last season was that he’d keep from being redshirted and would find his way onto the floor for some rotational minutes. Due to a variety of factors, he was able to see just over 15 mpg and even start in 6 of them. I mentioned earlier that his best game of the campaign came during the second game of the season, on a neutral site, against Florida – a contest that surely played a big role in our ability to eek into the tournament. I was revisiting tape recently, and the big difference between this game and some of the others (aside from him just getting into a groove) was that the Gators hadn’t yet seen our scout and weren’t yet cheating off of our perimeter, clogging the middle of the floor. As a result, Buchanan’s ball screens for Beekman were finding him a lot of space on the roll and he was able to gather the ball while moving toward the rim (and did well with those opportunities). The good news is, we should be much better with our ability to space the floor this season and so he should have more frequent contests where he’ll have more room to roam. Furthermore, often conceding some in strength last year, that has been supposedly an area that Buchanan has (literally) grown this offseason. Excellent with his mobility and ability to leap, a stronger and more experienced Buchanan should be a major (and I think under-appreciated, at the moment) boon for the team. Platooned with Robinson and Cofie, he should ensure that we always have a strong defensive post presence and rim runner on the floor and, here’s hoping, will have developed that low post game a little; some more touch on that little push shot, maybe the strength to power through contact more often. I capped him at about half the game here because I don’t expect him to be a dominant offensive presence and playing Center in the Pack Line requires a lot of energy with how often he’ll probably be hard hedging ball screens and recovering (which he’s quite good at); and adding a fully energized rotation of guys who all have a little something different to bring will be good – but BB should be the headliner.
Jalen Warley (6’7″ Senior, Point Guard)
23 MPG Starter
Here’s the other half of the PG combo with Ames. Warley really doesn’t shoot from deep… point blank… and for that main reason, ideally, he’ll spend the vast majority of his time as the primary ball handler when he’s on the floor. For a deeper dive on his game, check out my thoughts here. The lack of shooting is the headliner and what many want to shy away from because, candidly, we haven’t had great outside shooting from the PG position since Ty Jerome. But Warley unlocks so many other things for us. He’s a fantastic on ball defender who should be able to give hell to the opposition’s primary initiator. At 6’7″, his presence in our lineups gives incredible positional size and also unlocks our ability to play some crazy defensive lineups, should we so choose. He excels in both pressure and transition – ideally opening up the floor for us and increasing our pace in the right circumstances (are we more open to this? We’ll see but we’re still at the point in the season where anything is possible!). He’s such a fast slasher to the bucket and a very good passer who also protects the ball so, even though he’s not an outside shooting threat himself, it doesn’t take much for him to get all the way to the rim. Alongside one good ball screener and some quality shooting options, he should really make some hay. No, I don’t want to see Ames at point and then Warley playing off the ball (vice versa is more feasible but I’ve covered that) – I think we’ll probably run into many of the same spacing issues we did last year if that’s the case – so that’s the total of 40mins between them. As a starter for the past season and a half and with three years of ACC play under his belt, he is a one year stop-gap; but how good this year’s version of the team will be will probably depend a lot on Jalen Warley, how creative we are with how we deploy him, and how we structure the team around him.
TJ Power (6’9″ Sophomore, Power Forward)
25 MPG Starter
There’s a gap right now between what I think many fans are hoping for immediately from TJ Power as a former 5-star recruit transferring from Duke and where he is as a player ready to contribute. This 25 mpg want might sound right to a lot of fans right now, but I think it’s a more lofty goal than he’s probably currently being slated. It sounds like he’s going to have to make some adjustments to how we play defensively and what CTB expects from him physically. In my offseason review on him, I posited that he was going to be more of a spot up shooter from deep compared to someone who was regularly going to be able to create for himself off of the bounce; at least at this point in his career. That being said, the shooting from that 6’9″ frame is legit and, although he’s not as quick-footed as you’d hope yet, he plays with more functional athleticism, and size than a player like Jacob Groves did last year (although if we could get that 45.9% shooting clip – yes, please!). I don’t see him defending many SFs no matter who is in the game, but he could functionally play the SF role on offense, depending on who was playing alongside of him. And while it’s true that either Elijah Saunders or Jacob Cofie will probably be better defensive presences at the 4, it shouldn’t be the same level of liability as we saw with Groves last year. In fact, as long as he’s defending most PFs, I think his defense will be good enough… and as long as he’s on the floor, we’ll have the ability to stretch it from his position and make close outs difficult. 25 mpg is very likely a high estimate and I wouldn’t put money on him starting at the beginning of the season (and maybe not by the end of it, tbh) – but I do feel as though the best versions of this team will likely have him on the floor often and, given that he had the least playing experience of our incoming transfers but did practice all season against elite talent, that we should see some marked improvement from first tip to when we start trimming the rotation. Now, I should mention the elephant in the room that I do not think that TJ Power will be a good small ball Center (nor will Elijah Saunders if paired with TJ); but although I’m sure we’ll have that at times, I’m starting to feel more positive that we won’t see that too often. The hopeful presence of Cofie kind of mitigates some of those concerns and I think that they’ll feel as though they have enough flexibility (and feel poor enough about his ability to hold up down there) that it won’t be as tempting as it was in recent years past. I reserve the right to type many frustrated words if I’m wrong about this later in the year…
Isaac McKneely (6’4″ Junior, Shooting Guard)
30 MPG Starter
Please don’t play McKneely more than 30 mpg this coming season! This might be a controversial opinion, although it’s really just quibbling over two minutes from last year. McKneely is going to, once again, be a phenomenal shooter from deep and, in theory, teams should be able to key on him less this year (or be punished if they do). But there was an over-reliance on him at times last year and even a fatigue factor at times. I know this thought will shock some people who will think that we need as much McKneely as humanly possible next year and that he was one of our only offensive bright spots last. The fact of the matter is that we only scored 1.9 points per 100 possessions with McKneely on the floor than when he was off. And, even though his shooting was often key, his struggles creating for himself off of the bounce, getting forced into midrange jumpers, and lack of development finishing at the rim all allowed opponents to play pressed far too close to him with the sole purpose of denying his ability to shoot from deep and without much fear of anything else. Now, don’t get me wrong, he still found a way to get shots and it’s absolutely possible that he improves in some of those other areas; but if you’re playing both Murray and Sharma regular minutes and if you’ve got Saunders and Power both getting a lot of run, shooting shouldn’t be at as much of a premium. McKneely should be able to get a little more rest to save his legs and be able to exert more energy when he does play. We should be able to try a few other options defensively if he’s struggling with a matchup. Basically, his skillset is great and he should be one of our best players, but we also shouldn’t need his skillset to come from him as much this year. I think CTB will be tempted to play McKneely as much as possible this year – 35+ mpg. I say, let’s aim more for around 3/4ths of the game and expand the rotation a bit to account for it. It will make the time he does play more effective and should also help improve our depth.
Elijah Saunders (6’8″ Junior, Small Forward)
33 MPG Starter
There’s no player on the current roster who has seen as much postseason success as Elijah Saunders. He’s also the player that everyone is eager to talk about this offseason. There’s a palpable buzz about how he’s been shooting the ball and just how he looks generally. The athleticism that showed up on tape has travelled to the east coast. But it’s not just his experience nor how he’s shown up in Charlottesville that has me here for all of the Saunders minutes this year; it’s the positional versatility that he offers. No one player on the roster has the ability to do as many different things as he does and to fill as many different roles/needs. I have him listed as my starting Small Forward; something that I hope will happen more often than not (I actually think it will happen but less likely than at PF). Pair him alongside Power or even Cofie and the PF and include a Center? Add Warley at the point? Those are some HUGE lineups that don’t concede our own ability to shoot the ball. Saunders can slide with SFs, would be an absolute beast crashing the glass from the perimeter on both ends, and is a good shooter himself. The weakness of his offensive game is probably his handle but, depending on what offense we run, that may or may not matter – and will probably only be an issue for his SF prospects if we run a lot of Sides again. But, yes, you can also slide him down to PF and have him defend if we wanted to put more guards on the floor; and I’d advocate going in that direction over Power if we do to keep defensive stoutness. He’ll probably actually be the one defending the opponent’s Center if we go small ball with Power on the floor, as well, and although he’s undersized for that it does speak to his strength and all-around defensive game. In fact, Saunders could probably get switched onto any player 1-5 defensively and I wouldn’t think it was a huge mismatch. So, yeah, let’s start with him in the mathematical middle and then slide him around from there. I don’t think Saunders is likely to lead the team in any one box score statistic (maybe rebounds); but I do think he’ll do the most different things well, and unlocks the most options for us to play in a variety of different ways should we so choose.
So, those are my preseason thoughts on how best to integrate a full roster of capable and talented players into the mix this year by the time we trim the lineup. At 10 players getting minutes, it’s still probably unrealistic for CTB as I’m sure some will point out, but last year we did get up to 9 guys who saw regular time late in the season. This is a deep team with a lot of options, but also without a clearcut dominant player (or players) as we’ve had in the past. If this team is going to be good, I firmly believe that the sum of the parts needs to come together and just function well in cohesive lineups that do a little bit of everything well, have no glaring weaknesses, and don’t just rely on a handful of guys. This distribution of minutes reflects that. For those following along at home:
Starters
Jalen Warley, PG – 23 mins
Isaac McKneely, SG – 30 mins
Elijah Saunders, SF – 33 mins
TJ Power, PF – 25 mins
Blake Buchanan, C – 20 mins
Bench
Dai Dai Ames, PG – 17 mins
Taine Murray, SG/SF – 17 mins
Anthony Robinson, C – 15 mins
Jacob Cofie, PF/C – 10 mins
Ishan Sharma, SG/SF – 10 mins
Andrew Rohde, SG/SF – 0 mins
Christian Bliss, PG – 0 mins
Carter Lang, PF – 0 mins
Most of the justification is above but just a few short notes here in terms of things I like re: lineups:
Almost never play Warley and Ames together unless you’ve implemented a new offense that creates a lot of misdirection and tries to threaten multiple ball handlers going downhill. The spacing won’t be worth it and the defensive shift will be worse. Exception might be if we’re running more or pressing more (which will hopefully be possibilities with someone like Warley on your team).
Don’t hesitate to play Taine at the SG when McKneely is out, but have him at the SF if McKneely or Sharma are in.
Any of your best defensive lineups should have Warley at the 1 and Saunders at the 3. I don’t actually know what the best theoretical defensive lineup is because I can’t figure out who would be the best defensive 2. It might be Ames (with Warley still on the ball) but it could also be Rohde which is something of which to be aware.
We will almost inevitably try a lineup with Saunders and Power as the only two forwards, but lineups with either Saunders and Cofie or Power and Cofie at the 4/5 could functionally play similarly offensively without the same defensive liabilities. A lineup with all of Saunders, Power, and Cofie is enticing as you still have 5-out capabilities and that’s very formidable defense.
For traditional offenses if we run them; my favorite lineups paired with their respective historic offenses (and still accounting for the value they add defensively):
Sides: Ames, McKneely, Murray, Saunders, Buchanan
Inside Triangle: Ames, McKneely, Saunders, Power, Cofie
Flow: Warley, McKneely, Saunders, Power, Buchanan
In Conclusion
This was a much tougher version of this to write than last year. I always like to put the reminder that this isn’t what I think will happen; it’s what I’d like to see happen. Specifically, I’m sure Rohde will be utilized to at least some degree (and I’m least convinced I’m right about not using him), I think Ames will be used more and alongside Warley, Power will probably play less, and Sharma will probably redshirt (but that’s not as likely as I would have said it was prior to him getting on grounds).
The offenses I mentioned earlier are concepts that I’d love to see us design around with this group; but not fully fleshed out systems with every play diagramed. I would like to see us design a system that integrates many of those concepts. I do think we’ll see some form of changes, but I also think we will still some of our historical offenses at play. Whatever we do trot out that’s new, though, I’ll be hankering to dissect it the first few games we get to see it! And I’ll have that all here in my game recaps.
Thanks for reading! Here’s looking forward to the new season!
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