Seven Questions for Virginia to Answer Before the Houston Showdown

Close calls in three straight games have given the Cavaliers some things to clean up before No. 1 Houston comes to town

With an 8-0 resume that includes some of the most impressive wins in the country, there's no doubt that Virginia remains one of the top five teams in the nation at this point in the season. With that said, the last three games - each of them tight wins by narrow margins - have raised some questions for the Cavaliers, who must find answers for them with some urgency, especially with a date with No. 1 Houston on the horizon. 

Fortunately for UVA, a favorably-placed 10-day break for final exams gives the team ample time to rest from the recent hard-fought games, recover from injuries, and clean up some things in practice before the showdown with the top-ranked Cougars on Saturday, December 17th. Some of the problems that need to be addressed are simply a matter of getting healthy - the hamstring/ankle injury to Reece Beekman and whatever condition Kadin Shedrick has that is causing him to be hit in the head in seemingly every game, for example. Others will require some work, like Virginia's concerning drop-off in free throw and three-point shooting numbers. 

Here's seven questions for the Virginia Cavaliers to answer over the break before the matchup with Houston:

1. Will Reece Beekman be 100% healthy for the Houston game?

This is obviously the first and biggest question all UVA fans will be wondering about for this game. All things considered, Virginia could play a fantastic game against Houston and still lose if Reece Beekman isn't on the court. Given the way the Cavaliers looked against JMU after Beekman exited the game with the hamstring injury, especially on the offensive end, it is very clear that both the floor and the ceiling of this team are significantly lowered without Reece Beekman. 

Tony Bennett didn't have much information to provide about Beekman's condition in the postgame press conference and we likely won't learn anything else about his progress until pregame warmups on the 17th. On a transition layup early in the JMU game, Beekman apparently aggravated a hamstring issue that may or may not have been related to the ankle injury he suffered at Michigan. He was clearly not operating at 100% in the second half at Michigan or in the entire Florida State game. The Cavaliers did well on defense against JMU despite not having Beekman, but they'll definitely need him against the Cougars with their speedy and athletic guards. The bigger concern is how much the Virginia offense regressed without Beekman, becoming very stagnant and lacking rhythm without his playmaking abilities. Kihei Clark took over the offense as he has done frequently throughout his career, but as we'll get into later in the article, that version of the UVA offense is far from the most efficient.

Defeating Houston will require this team to be at its best. Reece Beekman's value was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by the way UVA struggled without him. Virginia head trainer Ethan Saliba is one of the best in the business - his efforts to get Beekman right over the next week and a half is arguably the single-most important factor in whether the Cavaliers will be able to run with the Cougars on the 17th. 

2. How much Kihei is too much Kihei on offense?

Kihei Clark has been flat-out brilliant this year. While his decision to come back for a fifth season was met with some mixed reactions, Clark has silenced the haters by playing some of the most efficient basketball of his career. He took a slight step back to let Reece Beekman be the primary ball-handler, but has stepped up his efficiency - hitting threes and getting to the basket with much more success while limiting his turnovers. When Beekman got hurt, though, suddenly Clark was thrust back into the role he played in 2019-2020, when the Cavaliers lacked a secondary playmaking ball-handler. 

Throughout the game against JMU, there was a lot of standing around waiting for Clark to make something happen, as opposed to the fluid ball-movement and consistent screening action that had powered Virginia's offense to its strong start. The outcome was a lackluster 55-point effort against a JMU defense that had given up 80 or more points three times this season. The fault for UVA's poor offensive production should not be placed on Clark, who recorded 18 points, seven assists, two rebounds, and a steal while playing almost the entire game. Clark played very well except for at the free throw line, where he uncharacteristically made just six of his 12 foul shots after entering the night shooting 81.5% from the charity stripe. Fatigue and exhaustion likely played somewhat of a role in that problem. 

When Beekman is healthy, the issue of "overusing Kihei Clark" is not really a problem. Virginia appears to have found a good balance between running him and Clark as the primary point guards. The two still share the court for extensive stretches, but each of them have learned how to be more effective off-ball, which has a lot to do with their improvements as three-point shooters. While some thought letting Beekman run the offense without Clark might be produce the best version of UVA's attack, it seems the lineups with both Beekman and Clark on the court are actually the most efficient. 

3. Can UVA get consistent, aggressive, and reliable play from the front court?

A big part of Virginia's offensive woes had to do with UVA's inability to win in the paint and on the glass despite possessing a significant size advantage over JMU. Tony Bennett made the right move to sit Francisco Caffaro for the game, as he would have struggled to keep up with the smaller, more athletic JMU bigs. But Kadin Shedrick should have had a field day on the interior. Instead, Shedrick struggled to get good positioning in the low post and UVA couldn't get the ball to him. Shedrick ended up taking just three shots, making only of them and finishing with two points and five rebounds. 

Shedrick blocked four shots in the game, but he was also a tad over-aggressive on some of JMU's shots at the rim, which allowed for offensive rebounds and easy putbacks. One of Shedrick's block attempts resulted in a goaltending call on a JMU layup that wasn't even close to going in. In an outcome that can only be attributed to poor positioning on box-outs or a lack of effort, Virginia lost the rebounding battle 41-33 to a much smaller JMU team, including 13 offensive rebounds. 

Jayden Gardner provided the aggression UVA needed in the front court, scoring eight of his 14 points in the second half and collecting eight rebounds. When a JMU 6-0 run tied the game at 42-42 with less than eight minutes to play, Gardner went on a personal 5-0 run to put the Cavaliers back in front. Gardner has greatly improved his defense this season and rediscovered his groove on offense, scoring in double figures in five-consecutive games after failing to reach that mark in each of UVA's first three games. 

His drop-off in free throw shooting is disturbing though. Gardner increased his free throw percentage from 73.7% in his last season at East Carolina to 79.3% in his first season at UVA. So far this year, he's made just 23 of his 38 free throws attempts - 60.5%. While there is a hope that he'll eventually regress upwards to his usual average, there has been a visible change in his shooting form. Gardner looks less comfortable taking the free throws, not using his legs and not giving his shot much arc. Gardner will need to get that sorted out in practice because his free throw shooting has been a big part of his scoring production throughout his career. 

4. What's going on with Virginia's overall free throw shooting?

Virginia's overall free throw shooting troubles have to be discussed in their own section since free throw misses alone nearly cost the Cavaliers each of their last two games. UVA let Florida State hang around late on Saturday due to some missed free throws and then the same thing happened against JMU on Tuesday but to a much greater extent, as Virginia missed 12 of its 24 free throw attempts. Jayden Gardner and Kihei Clark were the main culprits, combining to shoot 10/20 from the line. Tony Bennett attributed some of the problem to fatigue from the Cavaliers playing high-energy, complete team defense for the entire game. That's certainly a worthy excuse, but making free throws at the end of close games is a non-negotiable to be a successful team. 

5. How much of a cause for concern is Virginia's drop-off in three-point shooting over the last few games?

Perhaps even more concerning than the free throw misses in the last two games is Virginia's decline in three-point shooting numbers over the last several games. The Cavaliers started out on fire from beyond the arc - hitting on 44.0% of their three-point attempts vs. NC Central, 52.0% vs. Monmouth, and 64.3% vs. Baylor. In the five games since then, UVA has shot above 35% from three only once and that was a 50.0% shooting performance on only eight attempts against Michigan. Virginia shot 29.4% vs. Illinois, 33.3% vs. Maryland Eastern Shore, 26.3% vs. Florida State, and a season-low 23.8% vs. James Madison. The Cavaliers are producing fewer open looks from three and even the open shots aren't falling as often. Some of the slump can be attributed to Virginia's opponents responding to UVA's early success in shooting threes by intentionally running the Cavaliers off the three-point line and forcing them to get their points on the inside. But effective interior play from Jayden Gardner, Kadin Shedrick, and Francisco Caffaro can only get this team so far. The three-point shooting must become more consistent and reliable.

Can Ryan Dunn and Isaac McKneely continue to be relied upon in late-game situations?

Ryan Dunn and Isaac McKneely both played extended minutes late in the game against JMU. Part of it was circumstance-based, as the injury to Reece Beekman and foul trouble for Armaan Franklin forced Tony Bennett to go to Dunn and McKneely, respectively. 

Dunn being on the floor late in close games is becoming an important trend and it's a product of his incredible on-ball defensive work. The lengthy 6'8" guard was tasked with defending Takal Molson, who scored 20 points in the game and was almost solely responsible for JMU still being in the game at that point. Molson got the better of Dunn for a layup to make it a two-point game with a minute to go, but then Dunn responded with back-to-back clutch plays, scoring on a strong baseline drive and then forcing an errant pass from Molson for a turnover to essentially put the game away. Dunn finished with four points, five rebounds, and three blocks in just 19 minutes, a statline that doesn't nearly encapsulate the impact he had on the game. His two baskets were the two most memorable buckets of the game, as he delivered a thunderous transition dunk that energized the crowd at JPJ and sparked a 7-0 run for Virginia in the first half and then had the dagger layup to put the Cavaliers up by four points with 36 seconds left. Dunn's ability to not only offer reliable defense in crunch-time situations, but also play a role on offense is certainly giving Tony Bennett even more reason to trust the young freshman in key situations moving forward. 

Isaac McKneely, meanwhile, is having some trouble finding his three-point stroke right now. After making 5/8 threes in the win against Monmouth, he's made only five of his last 30 attempts, including a 1/11 mark over the last two games. McKneely made a couple of mistakes on the defensive end, but with Beekman out and Armaan Franklin in foul trouble, he did reasonably well down the stretch and gave UVA some great minutes at the end of the game. He finished with four points, two rebounds, one assist and a steal in 25 minutes. McKneely isn't likely to be regularly depended on in late-game situations, but it's still good to see him get that experience early in his career. 

How good can Virginia's defense be this season?

This isn't so much a question as it is an exclamation. JMU came into Tuesday night's game with the nation's No. 1 scoring offense at 93.3 points per game. Yes, some of those numbers were inflated by poor opponents, but the Dukes were also ranked second in the country in field goal percentage. Virginia held JMU to 27.3% shooting and only 50 points, more than 43 points below its scoring average. And the Cavaliers did that without their best defender in Reece Beekman, one of the best defenders in all of college basketball. 

UVA is now ranked 14th in KenPom's adjusted defensive efficiency metric. This team showed it can score with the best in the country early in the season. Now, the Hoos are beginning to show that they can defend at their usual standard as well. The last time a Tony Bennett team operated at that level on both ends of the floor, the Cavaliers cut down the nets at the end of the season. But, it's still very early and there's the question of establishing consistency at both ends of the floor, particularly for the offense which has started to struggle. The showdown against Houston on December 17th will serve as a suitable barometer for what Virginia can achieve this season, win or lose. 

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