Opportunities have been few and far between at Virginia since Taine Murray arrived in Charlottesville three years ago, but not even the sparse and inconsistent minutes over the years could deter the New Zealander.

“Obviously the coaching staff has a lot of experience with knowing who to play and when to play,” Murray said, “Just trying to trust in them and obviously go as hard as I can in practice and just try to learn all the things I can from all the coaching staff.”

Murray looked to be on the rise early in his first year at UVA following a still career-high 14 points in 21 minutes against Iowa in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge. But opportunities dried up shortly after and Murray did not crack 20 minutes played in a game again until this year. He has hit that mark 4 times during his junior campaign.

This season Murray has seen a relative uptick in playing time overall, going from 7.2 minutes as a sophomore to 12.4 minutes as a junior. Even still the guard ranked 10th on Virginia in minutes per game and had seen his minutes wane in the month of February leading up to the Cavaliers’ season finale against Georgia Tech.

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