Groves was 38% from 3 last year which is much better than being sub 37% OVERALL as a big
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i see 38% TWO years ago (at Eastern Washington)… looks like 28.6% LAST year at OU…
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it was 38%
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Not familiar with his game at all but how does a 6’9” guy shoot 39% from 2pt? You’d think there’d be a fair amount of dunks and gimmes to bolster that %. Add in 1.9 FTA/game and 0.7 blk/game and that’s a very finesse-y player.
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I never really dug into Beran’s numbers but he was absolutely terrible down the stretch and fell out of the rotation. Big downgrade from Basile
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I imagine we’ll have our own news sooner than later. And from the timing of the visits, how things played out, it’s a pretty safe assumption as to who we preferred for the role being filled.
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The biggest thing Beran has going for him is that he played a solid amount of minutes for a very good defensive team so he might be a good team defender, though his box score defensive stats aren’t exciting. As @AnonymooseHoo points out, Groves is coming off a better shooting season, not just from 3 but also from 2. Beran took around 20% of his shots from mid-range and shot awfully on them, around 20% coincidentally.
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apparently i was looking at his brother Tanner’s stats, whoops
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Geez, that’s worse than Shedrick’s 25% at midrange. At least Kadin knew his limitations and took 83% of his shots at the rim.
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Someone please correct me if my thinking is way off base here. I would imagine that any 6’9"/6’10" player in the portal, at whom the staff is looking, would be pursued as a backup. Right now, there are Buchanan, Minor, and Dunn. Does anyone think that there will be more than three front court players in the primary rotation? Unless Buchanan is completely unprepared to compete at the P5(6) level (and everything I’ve seen or heard suggests he is ready), then the fourth front court player is simply depth. I’m not sure a 3 point shooting percentage should be a major concern. I would imagine that defense and rebounding are way more important. That said, any C/PF who the staff feels qualified, and who also wants to come to Virginia given the current roster, should be heartily embraced by all. Regardless of who they are, I don’t think they’ll get that many 3 point opportunities. Additionally, I don’t imagine the staff is looking to develop a grad transfer’s game much further than it already is.
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I look at it as we are content with Minor and Buchanan as the starter and backup respectively at the 5. That leaves only Dunn and potentially Bond to play the 4. We’re one injury away from being in serious doo doo so it makes sense to add someone to solidify the front court rotation. Tony also always prefers 10 scholarship players.
Well, let’s take a look at needs on this team and we don’t have a single reliable shooter in the front court. What’s a skill set we could add to complement that group if, let’s say, we’re in a shooting slump and need a spark. Enter a guy like Jacob Groves who has P5 experience and comes into next year as the second best shooter on the team (statistically speaking). That’s a nice tool to have in the toolkit imo and makes us better. Maybe not a lot better, but enough to where a couple 3’s here and there is the difference in a game we otherwise lose.
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I have a suspicion that this isn’t entirely the way things are going to go. I imagine that Minor is going to rotate between the C and PF positions as needs dictate. I expect that he can be matched with with either Buchanan or Dunn. You’re perfectly right that another player shooting a high percentage from three would be a nice addition, but I simply don’t see it as a critical need. I do see a significant need for another front court player, but I’m a bit skeptical about their PT. And, we’ve had this discussion earlier, but finding a qualified player who is willing to accept such a role is going to be a bit of a challenge, IMO.
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Yes, I think that.
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Tony is absolutely in the habit of rotating 4 bigs when he’s got the depth (and guys aren’t in the doghouse). Keep in mind big men almost never go 30+ mpg for us like guards do, most starters top out around 25 mpg.
So let’s go ahead and plug in Minor at 20 mpg, Dunn at 25 mpg as starters. Groves gets maybe 15 mpg off the bench, split with 10 at the 5 spot and the rest at the 4 spot. Leaves 10 mpg for Buchanan to soak at the 5 and another 10 mpg for Bond to work in at the 4 (plus whatever extra minutes Bond gets at the 3). It’s a nice bridge that prevents Blake and Leon from being overwhelmed as freshmen while still having a defined role and regular minutes at their respective positions.
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I agree- except I think the 4th player *will get more time than you think especially if he can hit threes. I hope Dunn develops it this off season but if not then it will be good to have the option. Jarin Stevenson on the other hand would be icing on top, but I’m okay with grabbing someone who is immediately ready now: Boom-Bam another top 1-2 finish in the ACC.
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Going by the past six years, I don’t think you’re exactly right about the minutes played. Also, I think a lot of this discussion is complicated by how we define our terms. You and I may be talking about the same thing, but considering it differently. That said, over the past six years, only twice has there NOT been a “big” with over 30 mpg. In 2023, Gardner topped the front line with 26.3 mpg and, in 2018, Wilkins had 27.5 mpg. For my purposes, I don’t consider someone with fewer than 10 mpg to be a part of the primary rotation.
So consider these numbers:
2018 - Wilkins-27.5 mpg, Diakite-15.6 mpg, Salt-19.8 mpg (and Hunter had 19.9 mpg coming off the bench, but I don’t remember him playing the “4” much that year. Mostly subbed for Hall, IIRC.)
2019 - Salt-16.6 mpg, Diakite 21.8 mpg, and Hunter and Key had 32.5 & 19.8 mpg respectively, but, again, I am unsure how you define their minutes between SF and PF. This is the closest year that Coach Bennett came to having four front court players in the primary rotation, IMO.
2020 - Diakite 32.8 mpg, Key 33.6 mpg, Huff 25 mpg. Stattmann did have 21.5 mpg that year, but I would be very hesitant to say that a significant number of those minutes were in the front court.
2021 - Hauser 34.2 mpg, Huff 29.0 mpg, McKoy 11.3 mpg. Murphy did have 29.6 mpg, but I thought of him as a wing. Shedrick and Caffaro had fewer than 15 mpg between themselves.
2022 - Gardner 32.7 mpg, Shedrick 22.8 mpg, Caffaro 17.7 mpg. Stattmann had 15.8 mpg, but his roles were mixed.
2023 - Gardner 26.3 mpg, Vander Plas 24.8 mpg, Shedrick 17.5 mpg and Caffaro only had 8.2 mpg.
Also, if you use the standard of a minimum of 10 mpg to qualify as part of the primary rotation, then Coach Bennett used a seven man rotation in three of those years (2019, 2020, & 2022) and an eight man rotation in the other three (2018, 2021, & 2023). Lastly, if there are 80 minutes for the front court in every game, three players accounted for more than 70 of those in every year but 2019 and 2023, and 2019 was problematic because of Hunter and Key assuming so many roles.
So, I don’t think we’ll see a four man rotation at C & PF next year. I’m just going by the numbers. Of course, you can spin these numbers any of a number of ways, but I still think it comes down to a three man rotation. Especially since Virginia is so well stocked on the wings.
I like his shot. His wind up reminds me a bit of Huffzingis, and he’s pretty fluid while driving to the basket.
He has good size also.
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I must say, the 2023-2024 season will be quite the intriguing one. I could see it going just about anyway possible.
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