November, December, January. ACC openers have come at many different times during the Tony Bennett era. The results, however, have stayed the same for the Virginia men’s basketball team.
The Cavaliers won their 15th straight conference opener to remain perfect during Bennett’s tenure with an 84-62 romp against Syracuse at the John Paul Jones Arena on Saturday. The 22-point margin of victory is the largest of the 15, surpassing a 14-point win against Cuse in the 2019-2020 season. That game took place on Nov. 6 as the season opener as part of the ACC Network’s debut.
UVA is now 36-35 in ACC openers with Bennett’s run pushing the program above .500. That means prior to his arrival, the Hoos owned a 21-35 mark for a 37.5% win percentage. Saturday’s performance certainly rated among the best in an ACC opener as the Hoos hit 12 3-pointers with 8 different players scoring at least 6 points.
“Obviously we shot the ball well. You saw the good ball movement and cutting and so that was nice to see everyone involved and it stretches a real good defense,” Bennett said. “In the second half, they put their head down and went after us early to start the second half, but I thought it was another well-rounded [game], good ball movement, for the most part defensively in the first half it was sound, and again when the ball’s going in like that, it sort of covers up some of the breakdowns we had defensively. Offensively, I was very pleased. Defensively, can’t ever stop, can’t rest on the defense, and that’s got to keep getting better and better.”
The ball certainly found its way through the nets at a high clip for the Wahoos. They made 54.6% of their shots overall (30-55) and 57.1% from 3-point range (12-21). That included a blistering second half where the hosts knocked down 8 of 12 triples for a 66.7% clip that helped knock out the Orange. There was one stretch where Andrew Rohde, Jake Groves, Isaac McKneely, Taine Murray, and Reece Beekman caught fire with 7 straight 3-point makes in less than 8 minutes.
Rohde and McKneely each made a pair of 3’s during that run, but McKneely in particular had it going all day long. He connected on 6 of 8 long-range attempts on the way to a career-high 22 points that led all scorers. He also had 5 rebounds and 2 assists. His hot shooting performance pushed his season percentage to 54.3% (19 of 35). It took until Game 14 last season to reach 19 3’s, which coincidentally came against Syracuse in another sharp-shooting display – he went 4-7 from 3-point range in that win in January.
McKneely credited his coaches and teammates for continuing to help his shooting and overall offensive game to evolve. He also has a different role this season as the Hoos’ second-most experienced returning player and a go-to scorer for the team.
“The extra shots definitely help, but I just feel like I’m shooting it with more confidence this year and hunting my shot more, like you said taking the parking brake off and stuff,” McKneely said. “When you get in the flow of the game like that and you’re just letting them fly without thinking, it’s a good feeling.”
McKneely clearly was feeling good. On a couple of shots, he was sort of hopping or skipping backward as the confidence flowed. Oh, and at least 2 3’s came from way outside the arch. He drained one from near the halfcourt logo near the end of the first half.
“He’s getting a nice feel for where his shots are and he took a couple of deep, deep ones that you’re kind of like ‘OK’ but he was on today,” Bennett said smiling.
McKneely got plenty of help in a balanced effort from Virginia. Beekman and Rohde also scored in double figures with 13 and 10 points, respectively. Beekman added 8 assists with 0 turnovers too, while Rohde had 4 assists and 3 rebounds. Beekman passed Harold Dean for eighth on UVA’s all-time assist list with 472. Groves finished with 8 points, while Murray came off the bench in the second half for 7. Leon Bond III, Blake Buchanan, and Elijah Gertrude all had 6 points. Getrude just joined the rotation this week after earlier plans to redshirt and held his own against two Power 5 opponents. He posted 2 steals and 1 blocked shot against Syracuse as well.
In the end, UVA dished out 21 assists on 30 made baskets. The Hoos committed just 10 turnovers with most coming late with most or all of the starters sitting and made 12 of 15 free throws as well. It all added up to a lead as large as 33 points with 7:33 remaining – that came courtesy of Murray’s second triple – and was too much for the visitors to overcome.
“I thought everything kind of snowballed once we missed a couple defensive assignments and McKneely got going – that kind of gave the separation and it was hard to get back,” Syracuse coach Adrian Autry said.
The Orange’s hopes of a comeback had a limited shelf life thanks to a strong overall defensive outing from Virginia. Cuse made just 40.7% of its shots overall (22-54) and 25.0% from 3-point range (5-20). UVA had 8 steals and 4 blocked shots to contribute to those troubles.
Virginia also has a not so secret weapon in Beekman, the reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Year. The primary duty of limiting Syracuse star Judah Mintz fell to Beekman for the afternoon and he made life tough. Mintz finished with 5 points on 2-7 shooting. He had 1 turnovers and made 1 of 2 free throws as the Hoos shut off the paint for much of the contest.
Mintz has scored at least 15 points in 5 games this season, including 22 against Gonzaga and 33 against LSU just four days before the trip to the JPJ. He averaged 16.3 points last season as a freshman before testing the NBA Draft waters alongside Beekman this spring. So while JJ Starling (16 points) and Maliq Brown (10 points) picked up some of the slack, the Orange couldn’t get enough going to keep pace.
“First, Reece is a very good individual defender but we talked about it before the game, it’s not Reece or whoever matched up on Judah, it’s us vs. him and we have to make it tough,” Bennett said. “He’s so good at drawing fouls and making moves, we just tried to, we said own the lane, jam the lane. Reece and Judah played so much together in the NBA Combine, all their workouts, so they obviously have familiarity with each other, but his game against LSU was terrific. … It was good team defense and Reece certainly was really locked in because he knew that was going to be important in the game.”
UVA improved to 12-2 against Syracuse since the latter joined the ACC. That includes a six-game winning streak. The Hoos have held the Orange to 69 or fewer points in 16 straight meetings. Virginia plays one final game before the exam break when North Carolina Central comes to town on Tuesday for a 7 p.m. tipoff.
Gertrude. How can you not like what you see? We’re going to shock a few people.
The one two punch of Beekman and Gertrude is going to wreck Quinerly when we play Memphis.
Even Taine was scorching the nets!
Great summary and quotes Kris……thanks! I do not recall a game last year where we shot that well. Cannot expect to do that every game, but great to see that we have a lot of players that can potentially fill it up. A 22 point win with Dunn only getting 4 — that is amazing. Go Hoos!