When the Milwaukee Bucks selected Malcolm Brogdon in the NBA Draft last week, it marked the fourth time in five years that a Virginia men’s basketball player landed among the picks. Mike Scott started the recent trend in 2012 followed by Joe Harris (2014), Justin Anderson (2015), and Brogdon.
It also served as a stark reminder of just how far the program has progressed with coach Tony Bennett at the helm. Prior to that quartet’s string of picks, Virginia had just two players drafted in the previous 16 years. Roger Mason Jr. came off the board in 2002, while Sean Singletary heard his name called in 2008. A ‘once per eight years’ ratio or, put another way, one player for every two full recruiting cycles isn’t a strong track record anywhere, but it’s even tougher to find consistent success when you’re playing on the same neighborhood courts as Duke and North Carolina.
That was something that this Sabre article outlined by back in 2006, prior to Singletary’s selection and before the current conference alignment had taken shape. As the article pointed out, Virginia had the fewest NBA Draft picks of any of the ACC’s nine long-time members over the decade from 1996-2005. Duke (14), UNC (11), Georgia Tech and Maryland (9), Wake Forest (4), Florida State (3), Clemson and NC State (2) all had more. The article likened that talent deficit to playing poker without a full deck of cards.
“Playing with that sort of talent gap is akin to entering Texas Hold ‘Em poker tournaments knowing that you will have nothing but non-face cards. Sure you can play and you might even take some big hands, but winning enough to progress deep into any tourneys is highly unlikely.”
While the article highlighted an improving talent level early in the Dave Leitao tenure that ended up being a short-lived bust, the general point still stood when Bennett took the reins in 2009. If UVA was going to be more consistently successful in the win column, particularly with the eventual addition of Syracuse and Louisville to the league ranks, then the program needed to accumulate more overall talent and then develop that talent more effectively. NBA Draft picks, of course, represent just one way to measure progress, but the recent string of selections over the past five years is a positive sign for the program.
The results, not surprisingly, have shown up in the win column too. Virginia’s cumulative record from 1996-2011 when it produced only two NBA Draft picks landed at 253-231 (.523 winning percentage). In the five years since with four NBA Draft picks in the program, UVA produced a record of 134-41 (.766 winning percentage). The five-year run includes five seasons with at least 20 wins plus two of three 30-win seasons in program history.
Those wins and the NBA Draft picks that followed are a sign of program still on the rise. That’s something that Hoo fans welcome with open arms.
