The Virginia basketball team wrapped up its 2020-2021 campaign with its seventh consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance. While the Cavaliers’ stay in the Big Dance didn’t last long, they did finish the season with at least 18 wins for the 10th straight time. With this season now in the archives, it’s time to look back at the annual 10 preseason questions for the Hoos.
Part I is below. Part II is scheduled to appear this week. The preseason articles are here and here.
10. What does the season look like during a pandemic?
Even as the season inched to the starting line, the schedule already featured moving parts. I mean, remember this?
Less than a week to go until the scheduled season-opener against Virginia, @CoachBUMaine is here with another performance for us #BlackBearNation | #AEHoops pic.twitter.com/uZUCLGCCLX
— Maine Men’s Basketball (@MaineMBB) November 19, 2020
That’s Maine coach Richard Barron, who once worked basketball camps with Terry Holland, passing some time less than a week before the scheduled season opener with UVA as part of “Bubbleville” at the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. That game never happened. The Bears had a positive test pop up prior to the event and Maine paused athletics for two weeks. The Wahoos initially were scheduled to face Florida in the bubble too, but the Gators also withdrew due to a pause with their program.
The Cavaliers ended up playing Towson and San Francisco instead, splitting the pair. Those two games foreshadowed the year to come as hot 3-point shooting - 15 made 3’s - captured the fans’ imagination in the opener and cold 3-point shooting - 3 made 3’s - deflated the fans’ hopes just as quickly. The season eventually contained similar swings.
The nature of how those two games even occurred provided a clear glimpse at the year ahead. The schedule once featured Florida, Villanova, and Michigan State, but none of those games got played. After the Gators’ pause scratched the Mohegan Sun game, Virginia underwent its own pause in December and that eliminated the Wildcats and Spartans from the docket. That same pause led to one game at Wake Forest being dropped too. UVA replaced one of the non-conference games with a quickly scheduled trip to Texas to face No. 1 Gonzaga, a game the still undefeated Bulldogs won with 98 points.
Virginia ended up with one more ACC game that didn’t get played as Virginia Tech’s trip to Charlottesville was postponed on Jan. 2 and never rescheduled. A home game with NC State on Jan. 20 moved to Feb. 24, while a home game with Louisville was replaced with a home game against Pittsburgh in early February.
All of that shifting, however, ended up being just a precursor to the ultimate pandemic story of the season for the Hoos. After winning a road game at Louisville to claim the ACC Regular Season Championship, the Cavaliers followed it up with a win in the ACC Tournament against Syracuse. The next day, Virginia received a positive test within the program and was forced to withdraw from the ACC Tournament. That threw into question whether the Hoos would even be eligible for selection into the NCAA Tournament field.
It turned out to the be the last possible day a positive test could have occurred and a way into the field still be possible. Virginia quarantined for 7 days with no more positive tests and earned a No. 4 seed in the bracket against Ohio. The Hoos practiced only once in the week before the matchup, traveled the day before the game, underwent a round of coronavirus tests after midnight, and then struggled in the game with the Bobcats. That ended the season with a loss.
9. What impact will Sam Hauser make?
Entering the season, plenty of buzz surrounded Marquette transfer Sam Hauser as he waited his Virginia debut following a redshirt year. Expectations were high for his one season in Charlottesville with preseason first-team All-ACC honors among the indicators. With good reason.
Hauser arrived as a second-team All-Big East selection following his junior year with the Golden Eagles when he averaged 14.9 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 2.4 assists. He scored in double figures in 28 of 34 games and shot 40.2% from 3-point range. He started 97 of 101 possible games for Marquette. As noted in the preseason questions, that all added up to “a player that Virginia can move around effectively” as an inside-outside threat.
Hauser lived up to the expectations, even after an uneven start to the season. He averaged 16.0 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 1.8 assists. He scored in double figures in 23 of 25 games and shot 41.7% from 3-point range. He started every game. He scored 20+ six times and 18+ 10 times. He was the only player named preseason first-team All-ACC to also land on the postseason first-team All-ACC list. He also earned all-district honors from the NABC (National Association of Basketball Coaches) and the USBWA (U.S. Basketball Writers Association). Defensively, he improved as the season progressed but ended up with a pedestrian defensive rating of 100.4 per 100 possessions.
Beyond the statistics, Hauser gave Virginia reliable mid-post offense in a vein similar to Mike Scott’s senior year and 3-point shooting similar to Joe Harris’ senior year. In the game at Louisville to clinch the ACC Regular Season Championship, he poured in 24 points on 9-14 shooting and 8 rebounds. He followed that up with 21 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists in the ACC Tournament before UVA bowed out. He did struggle shooting in the loss to Ohio, but had 15 points and 9 rebounds.
In summary, Hauser delivered on his potential, but he didn’t exceed expectations either. He didn’t reach ACC Player of the Year heights or All-American status or become a full-fledged Superman alpha-scorer. He did consistently produce, led the team in scoring and finished second in rebounding, shot the ball at a high percentage most of the time, and generally created gravity for the offense. Hauser helped deliver another regular season title to Charlottesville too. That’s a good year.
8. How many players will be in the rotation?
Going into the season, a big question for the Wahoos was who would slot into minutes alongside Kihei Clark, Jay Huff, and Sam Hauser. Those three projected clearly as starters with Clark and Huff back after playing big roles in the 2020 stretch run that saw the Hoos surging, while Hauser had proven in the Big East that he could be a major producer at the college level. Knowing that Coach Bennett typically settles into a rotation of 7 to 9 players with one more getting spot minutes, projecting the remaining spots was interesting for preseason chatter.
I predicted a 9-player rotation with spot minutes even without Trey Murphy III being eligible - the initial plan was for him to redshirt as part of the NCAA transfer rules, but he eventually received a waiver and became part of the rotation. Still, without him on the preseason availability list, I thought Casey Morsell, Tomas Woldetensae, Reece Beekman, Jabri Abdur-Rahim, Francisco Caffaro, and Justin McKoy would carve out a niche alongside the expected trio. My guesses were based on a) needing an additional playmaker/ballhandler, b) needing someone that could create his own offense, and c) Hauser not playing all of his minutes as a small ball forward. I gave a nod to experience in the cases of Morsell, Woldetensae, and Caffaro, the previous two being big minutes guys (and sometimes starters) the year before and the latter being the one physical center option on the roster.
My minutes guess: Clark (35), Hauser (33), Huff (28), Morsell (22), Woldetensae (22), Beekman (17), Abdur-Rahim (17), Caffaro (11), and McKoy (10). Here’s how that shook out: Clark (34), Hauser (34), Huff (27), Morsell (15), Woldetensae (13), Beekman (29), Abdur-Rahim (4, but in only 8 games played), Caffaro (7), and McKoy (11.2). Obviously, there are some hits and some misses in there and in the cases of Caffaro and McKoy, there were several “did not play - coaches’ decision” nights that don’t show up in minutes averages.
So what happened to shift minutes? One, Beekman emerged as a better defender than anticipated for a freshman and arguably became the best guard defender on the roster as the season progressed. That equaled major minutes (+12 from my projection that essentially ate up the -16 for Morsell and Woldetensae in my guesses). Kadin Shedrick wasn’t in my projections (I thought coming off a redshirt year with similar skills to Huff, he might be a spot minutes guy), but he did get into 11 games for an average of 8 minutes and it looked like his role could be growing when he got sidelined by an illness and didn’t really make it back into games other than cameo style. That pushed Caffaro out of the rotation, though he got back in and then fell back out for the most part.
The rest of the minutes shuffle can be traced to one thing: Murphy’s eligibility. He went from unavailable to playing 29 minutes per game. That accounted for the remaining minutes lost for Morsell and Woldetensae plus a lot of the minutes (or even appearances) projected for McKoy and Abdur-Rahim in my mind. Ultimately, Murphy’s presence and his ability to shoot a high percentage on 3-point shots led to a line-up of Clark, Beekman, Murphy, Hauser, and Huff all playing 27+ minutes. He and Hauser could flip-flop small ball forward roles depending on matchups or schemes. With all of those players grabbing big minutes, it only left 47 on the table for everyone else on average and who got those minutes remained an ongoing storyline within the season as Morsell and Woldetensae took turns with bigger minutes at times, while McKoy, Caffaro, and Shedrick did the same on the front line at times.
With the season and rotation questions complete, the big news since for Virginia basketball has been transfer news. Morsell, Abdur-Rahim, and McKoy all announced their decisions to leave the program. The seniors - Huff, Hauser, and Woldetensae - at this point are not expected to return, though Hauser is the only one that has publicly announced that he will be seeking professional opportunities instead of using the extra year granted by the NCAA due to the pandemic. That means at least 6 of 13 scholarship players from this year’s roster are not expected to be on the 2021-2022 roster and Murphy could explore the NBA landscape. The Wahoos have 8 players projected to be on scholarship currently with 5 open scholarship spots.
How much, if any, of that was related to playing time and inconsistent roles in the rotation? There’s no way to no for sure unless a player says so on the record, but playing time often contributes to transfer decisions as players seek new opportunities elsewhere. While on paper, it currently looks like any of the three underclassmen had a path to playing time based solely on numbers and positions, that’s never guaranteed and you have to assume that the Cavaliers will be active participants in the transfer market, which has significant numbers with no sit-out year required this offseason (due to the pandemic, but it’s a rule change that is anticipated to become permanent). Plus, McKoy and Morsell have seen the inconsistent role piece for two years and may have just wanted, or needed, a change of scenery.
The debate among fans about roles, playing time, and the like will continue and could be a conversation piece in future years too if the new transfer rules pass for good. Giving heavy minutes to 5 players is not unusual for Coach Bennett if you look at past season statistics, though in some years it’s been more evenly spread with 6 to 7 players getting 18+. It will be interesting to watch how the roster changes and what playing time breakdowns follow.
7. What does Jay Huff’s ceiling look like?
When Huff became a regular starter his junior season and his minutes climbed (106 as a freshman, 318 as sophomore, 748 as a junior), he started to settle in with production. Down the stretch of the 2019-2020 season as UVA closed with an 8-game winning streak, Huff scored 8 points or more in 5 games, grabbed 5 rebounds or more in 6 games, made at least 1 3-pointer in 5 games (40% or better in 4), and posted 2 blocked shots or more in 6 games. He led the nation in defensive rating at 82.2 (.822 efficiency rating), though that’s an estimate as an individual statistic. He led UVA in rebounding percentage, including defensive rebounding percentage at 20.5% (how many rebounds grabbed off of rebounds available while you’re on the floor) and was 7th in the ACC in that category. He led the ACC in block percentage too at 11.1% (2-point shots blocked out of shots taken while you’re on the floor). He posted career-high averages of 8.5 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 2.0 blocks per game.
The question, of course, was once he decided to return to Virginia, could he take his game to new heights as a senior big man like Mike Scott, Darion Atkins, Anthony Gill, and Mamadi Diakite did for example. The answer was a big yes. Huff finished with career-high averages in scoring (13.0), rebounding (7.1), blocked shots (2.6), assists (1.0), and free throw percentage (83.7%). He became the program’s No. 2 all-time shot blocker (tops in the Bennett era and behind only the uncatchable Ralph Sampson overall). He scored in double figures in 18 of 25 games, grabbed at least 5 rebounds in 20 of 25 games, made at least 1 3-pointer in 17 of 25 games, and posted 2 blocked shots or more in 19 of 25 games (that included 8 games with 4 or 5 blocks!). Huff led the ACC in total blocks (66), block percentage (11.9%), defensive rating (.918), and field goal percentage (58.5%) plus some other advanced statistics too. He led the Hoos in rebounding and defensive rebounding percentage (24.6%) too.
Those averages landed near what I thought was possible for Huff (a little higher scorer average, but on the nose for rebounds and blocked shots). Huff took over some games defensively with his presence in the paint, but still didn’t cover hedge-and-recover ground consistently. He generally avoided foul trouble much better later in his career, but it still popped up at times in his final year. Offensively, he flashed his ‘Hoonicorn’ credentials as a player that could hit 3’s, score near the blocks, or periodically drive the ball. but he never really took over games or overwhelmed opponents with his size. So for the ceiling question, Huff may not have become the dominant player some thought or hoped for while at Virginia, but he certainly improved and developed into a high-level All-ACC player as a senior (second-team honors) and defender as well (ACC All-Defensive team). That progress was fun to watch.
6. Who is the ‘X factor’ this year?
When the possibility that Trey Murphy III might play immediately after his transfer from Rice gained steam near the start of the season, he immediately became my choice for the annual toss-up question in this slot. After all, he had started 23 games at Rice, had two years of college experience already with more than 1,500 minutes played, led his previous team in scoring (13.7), was second in 3-pointers made (75 on 36.8% shooting), and was third in rebounds (5.5). Oh, and he grew from a 6’4” recruit into a 6’9” versatile forward.
Murphy’s availability changed the look of Virginia’s team, putting three high-volume and high-percentage shooters in the frontcourt. Murphy averaged 4.8 3-point attempts per game and hit them at a 43.3% rate this season. Hauser took 6 3-point attempts per game and made 41.7%; Huff took 3.0 3-point attempts per game and made 38.7%. That gave the Wahoos two interchangeable players both offensively and defensively in the forward spots with a stretch center/rim protector to boot.
The combination opened up space for drives, mid-post looks (another strength of Hauser), and the possibility of drive-and-kick offense for shooters. At its best, the offense could explode on teams with four 80-point games and many others at 75+ entering late January. The Cavaliers could space you out and take advantage of the openings. When teams countered with more physical defense, switching schemes, and scouting reports that refused to help much off of those front-court shooters, however, the offense sputtered down the stretch. UVA struggled to find a mix that could capitalize against those defensive choices.
Still, Murphy gave Virginia another double-digit scorer and he provided a lot of things for the team in his Cavalier debut. He hit 3’s and had a lot of success cutting behind defenses for dunks or easy buckets. He made free throws to the tune of 92.7%, though it was on low attempts (1.6 per game). He averaged 11.3 points, 3.4 rebounds, and 1.2 assists. Defensively, he had a lot of breakdowns as he adapted to the demands of UVA’s scheme, but also showed improvement with slides and individual on-ball defense. It’s hard to picture what this season may have looked like without him in the lineup. That meets the definition of an ‘X factor’ for sure.
Now with the offseason in full swing, Murphy becomes an ‘X factor’ of a different kind. As mentioned above, Virginia’s roster for next season suddenly looks very different than it did two weeks ago. It could change even more pending Murphy’s offseason decisions. Considering the make-up of the roster currently, Murphy figures to be a starter and high usage player if he comes back to Virginia. That could put him in a position to showcase his talents further.
On the other hand, he reportedly has gotten some NBA scout attention during the season as a potential draft pick this summer - he’s 6’9” and can shoot so that’s an attractive combo in today’s NBA. There is no reason at all for Murphy not to test the NBA Draft waters. He should - and likely will - declare for the draft and receive the feedback that comes through that process. He can hire an agent, try to earn some workout opportunities with pro clubs, and things like that as well - he still would be allowed to withdraw and return to school if he doesn’t like the projections or feedback.
What happens with Murphy is an ‘X factor’ for the offseason.
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