The Virginia basketball team made its season debut Sunday afternoon with the Blue-White intrasquad scrimmage at the John Paul Jones Arena. Thousands of fans got their first look at newcomers Nigel Johnson and Marco Anthony as well as a refresher on the returnees.
Players swapped teams for part of the scrimmage, but for the first two quarters (10 minutes running clock) the lineups remained mostly static. The Blue team with Anthony, Jay Huff, De’Andre Hunter, Mamadi Diakite, and Trevon Gross Jr. played a convincing first quarter (23-12), but the White team with Johnson, Devon Hall, Isaiah Wilkins, Kyle Guy, and Jack Salt responded with a dominant second quarter (29-5) and a shutout for close to five minutes.
Ty Jerome (left foot in a boot) and Francesco Badocchi (summer surgery) did not play. Justice Bartley also saw action and the scrimmage ended when he ended up on the floor for several minutes in the fourth quarter. Austin Katstra saw limited time in that final quarter.
For the way scrimmages go – limited strategic planning on either offense or defense – the Hoos showed exactly what should be expected of a Virginia that features a mix of game-tested players and newcomers. Their trademark defense had the effort needed and the offense looked unselfish. And all the offseason chatter about the possible versatility of the roster was on display even without Jerome in the mix. Beyond that, it was too small and restricted of a sample size to draw too many sweeping conclusions.
With that said, and this is without watching the replay yet, there were plenty of impressions made so in the spirit of UVA basketball, it’s time to share! (Also in the sharing spirit, give a look to Matt Riley’s photo gallery – all photos in this article are his work!)
Scrimmage Impressions
1. Jay Huff in the house. The offseason months on the message boards have been filled with a daydreamer’s delight: the potential of redshirt freshmen Jay Huff and De’Andre Hunter. So let’s start there with Huff. The 7’1”, 230-pound post flashed some of what’s so intriguing about him with 3-point range, fluidity of movement, and good ball skills from dribbling to passing to rebounding. He can pick-and-pop on offense and block or bother shots on defense, both of which will be valuable commodities for this year’s team.
Huff is still early on the development curve and that showed at times too. Other than popping around the perimeter, he didn’t get himself involved offensively in other ways consistently. While his natural timing and instincts were on display in bothering and blocking shots in post defense, his footwork and positioning had some inconsistency as well. Still, with that huge frame and wingspan, he can cover up some of that anyway.
By and large, Huff did nothing to slow down the growing interest in his debut season with the Hoos.
2. De’Andre Hunter too. The same could be said of Hunter. In fact, he grabbed attention right away by coming off a standard UVA baseline screen in rhythm for a long two-point jumper. That shot came over one of the league’s best defenders in Devon Hall. At 6’7” with long reach, Hunter is going to be able to do that at times. Simply rise up and shoot over people.
Like his fellow redshirt Huff, Hunter flashed some of the interest-piquing skills that fans have been excited about. In addition to the smooth jumper, his length and fluidity of movement looked so comfortable overall. He could easily become a stellar defender at this level. The ability to play off the bounce for space and then rise up is there. It’s just a matter of consistency and learning how to impact the offense when you don’t have the ball in your hands. He’ll also need to be stronger with the ball. Several times in the scrimmage, the veteran guys poked the ball away or fully stripped it out of his hands.
All in all, Huff and Hunter put on display exactly what coach Tony Bennett described at Media Day. Flashes of their enticing potential with the need for greater consistency and continuity on both ends of the floor.
3. Nice first impression. I thought Nigel Johnson made a huge first impression in a Virginia uniform. The 6’1”, 182-pound graduate transfer from Rutgers played exceptionally well. He got to the rim, especially against unsettled defense in transition, directed the offense on the White team that was filled with other returners, knocked down open 3-pointers, and put his general quickness on display defensively. He’s clearly a solid combo guard with the skill to mix it up on drives and shots plus provide some good on-ball defense.
The biggest impression may have been what he did not do, though. He did not turn the ball over. He did not force much offensively at all, which could have happened in an open flow scrimmage when you’re making your debut in front of fans. He did not appear to be wildly out of place defensively. He did not foul. He looked exactly like you’d hope a veteran graduate transfer would look.
It’s a long season and there will be plenty of scouting report details, heady competition in the ACC, and more to challenge Johnson in the weeks ahead. But the scrimmage easily reinforced my projection of 20+ minutes – that seems locked in at this point.
4. Upperclassmen playing defense again. Of all the things Bennett’s program does well, the way veterans usually play defense as juniors and seniors is so enjoyable. The program’s identity begins with the Pack-Line Defense, the five-as-one ballet that captures the program’s unity pillar as well as anything could. So when you get experienced players out there together and the defensive rhythm settles in, it’s just awesome to watch.
That brings us to Hall, Wilkins, and Salt. Those three can really defend. They’re so positionally sound yet alert so the movement into a help spot is usually reflexive not reactive. They keep their hands off as defenders even when contesting and blocking shots. The angles they play with are sound. It’s really good stuff, even in an early season scrimmage with new pieces and a more relaxed flow. Those three helped engineer the White team’s second quarter five-minute shutout.
Still, there is the question of how much to play those three players together even when taking Bennett’s defense-first standard into account. Salt and Wilkins are not offense-driven players, meaning they relish the roles of setting up teammates, doing the little things well, and being supporting cast stalwarts. Hall has stated he will be more aggressive this season, but I don’t think you want that assertiveness to go too far past an efficiency threshold. Even with a more aggressive Hall (he had 7 of his team’s 13 points in the third quarter), it would leave a lot of pressure on the other two guard spots to handle a possibly significant scoring load.
The development of Huff, Hunter, and Diakite is a big factor here too. It’s not an obvious offense for defense question in my mind as much as a consistency overall question. Regardless, the post rotation and how to effectively blend together pieces of the puzzle is a big thing to watch.
5. Inside touches. While I read a little on the message board in the hours since the scrimmage contrary to this, I actually thought there was an obvious effort on certain possessions to go inside and then live with the results. Note, that’s definitely not the same thing as running the offense through the post like the days of Mike Scott or Anthony Gill. Still, Bennett has mentioned this offseason, Media Day included, that the Hoos may need to put the ball in the post and ask those guys to try to score anyway even though that may not be their strongest skill. I thought several possessions over the course of the first three quarters showed the willingness to do that.
6. A more assertive Guy … and that’s a good thing. Sophomore guard Kyle Guy said on Media Day that the coaches had continued to ask him to be more assertive. As the scrimmage progressed, he started to do exactly that. The most important part of that though is that he wasn’t just 3-pointer hunting or using a shot fake, one-dribble move for jumpers. Guy started to show flashes of what made him a dangerous scorer before he arrived. Among the moves on display: a pull-up in the lane, a fake pull-up in the lane to an up-and-under shot, a runner off a curl, and some transition drives.
Guy asserting himself on offense is a good thing. This team likely will have the goods when it comes to defense – the program almost always does under Bennett – but with no double-digit scorer returning, some players are going to need to up their averages to get enough team points on the board. Guy averaged 7.5 points in 18.6 minutes last season on a true shooting percentage (per Hoop-Math this “accounts for the different values of two point shots and three point shots, as well as including the value added by made free throws”) of 56.3%. In other words, he was already efficient at 16.2 points per 40 minutes and a 116.1 rating per 100 possessions so him looking for his offense more should help the team.
And how about that bump and dunk?!
7. The Wilkins Hoo fans love. After seeing Isaiah Wilkins really struggle down the stretch last season with an illness of some sort, it was great to see him back to his old self even if it was just a scrimmage. He blocked shots, rotated on defense, kept possessions alive with tips or rebounds on offense, and played hard as always. Two favorite plays: diving on the floor from six or eight feet away in a scrimmage and the wrap-around extra pass that led to a Jack Salt dunk.
8. Jerome’s absence. With a boot on his left foot – it’s reportedly something that will be fine by the season opener – Ty Jerome showed how important his role is for this team. As stated above, Johnson looked great, Hall wants to be more assertive, and Guy is looking for his shot more. Still when all three of those guys were on the same team, you saw at times how the Blue team needed someone to help lead Diakite, Huff, and Hunter into better scoring chances. I think Jerome can help do that based on his minutes last season while also getting himself some shots.
9. Diakite with Hall, Johnson, and Jerome. One thing that we didn’t get to see in the scrimmage was Diakite on the same team with some of the play-making guards. The redshirt sophomore forward made a 3-pointer and attempted a turn-around fade-away on a post move, but there weren’t a whole lot of moments on offense overall. He scored 70.3% of his shots at the rim last season (26 of 37 shots made) off of assists from other players. The combination of a free-flowing scrimmage and some of the expected playmaking guards on the White team or on the bench likely impacted his chances.
10. More transition. The way the season ended with the offense struggling, there have been hints all offseason long about some changes to the offense (stay tuned for more on this). For example, Bennett and the assistant coaches indicated they may look to push more often on a selective basis at several VAF social events.
That doesn’t mean the Hoos are suddenly going to morph into an up-and-down track meet style of team, but there were clear indications in the scrimmage that the coaches want to get the ball up the floor more quickly and to take advantage of numbers or angles if they’re there. Two players that could benefit from that the most are Johnson and Guy. Both are quick in the open floor and can get on top of a retreating defense fast. Johnson showed his ability to score around the rim and ward off bigger bodies, while Guy flashed his ability to touch the paint some too.
It will be interesting to see if that carries forward into the regular season, though I suspect it will.
