Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Overwhelms Texas A&M 59-47

Tony Bennett’s crew shut down Texas A&M in the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge 59-47

Val Prochaska

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Overwhelms Texas A&M 59-47
The Plus/Minus: Virginia Overwhelms Texas A&M 59-47 /
In this story:

Virginia knocked off No. 14 Texas A&M 59-47 in the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge on Wednesday night at John Paul Jones Arena. Val has the Plus/Minus to break down UVA's big win over the Aggies.

Plus

A win is a win is a win. It was an immensely satisfying win: knocking off Buzz Williams, formerly coach of Virginia Tech, who it has to be said, has done quite nicely since moving to his alma mater. It was beating Henry Coleman III, who mother is a Wahoo, who I very much wanted to see at Virginia coming out of high school, but who went to Duke. His career was, umm, marginal and he’s carved out a niche in College Station, but it’s still gratifying to beat a guy who spurned the Hoos. 

Minus

Dante Harris was on the sidelines sporting a cast and crutches. Reece Beekman was hurt as well and was a game-day decision as to whether he’d play. He lacked his usual explosiveness, but he still logged 35 minutes.

Plus

Enter Elijah Gertrude. He burned his redshirt with the team facing the prospect of perhaps playing without their two point guards. He didn’t have a ton of time, but he made the most of it. He played maybe 45 seconds in the first half, but he grabbed a defensive rebound (more on that.) In the second half, he had a block, and a very helpful assist to the ref who then called a double dribble. (I know why the ref paused before the call. It took me a second to realize it, too.) The scouting reports are correct: Gertrude is a physical stud.

Plus

Reece Beekman completely shut down Texas A&M’s Wade Taylor. Taylor is leading the Aggies in scoring at 20 points/game, put up 35 against a tough Florida Atlantic, and was the SEC Preseason player of the Year. Against Beekman? He scored just nine points on 2/10 shooting, including airballing a pair of threes. He had five turnovers. And for good measure, when he kicked his leg out on a three-point attempt to draw a foul from Beekman, the career 88% free throw shooter made one of his free throws. Beekman, sore knee and all, simply owned Taylor on this night.

Minus

As expected, Texas A&M pummeled the Hoos on the boards. Coleman is a beast under the boards and very comfortable in traffic. Coleman had seven offensive boards, or, as many as the Cavaliers did. Virginia certainly tried to win the battle of the boards, but most everything fell to the Aggies. On one sequence, Beekman got a tip of the ball, but sent it directly to Coleman. Who converted. On the next possession down, Texas A&M went to the line and won the rebound off the miss. As such, Texas A&M had 16 second-chance points to Virginia’s three. Texas A&M is the best rebounding team in the country, grabbing 46% of their misses on the offensive glass, but this is going to be an issue regardless of who UVa plays.

Plus

As Virginia iced the game in the second half, one five-possession sequence for Texas A&M ended in three Ryan Dunn blocks and one Reece Beekman block. The Aggies only scored on one of those five possessions. Next growth pattern for Dunn? He needs to learn to do something more constructive with his blocks because he pounding the ball like he’s at a volleyball net.

Meanwhile, on the offensive end, Dunn can do this:

Plus

Dunn and Beekman’s defense is off the charts, but Isaac McKneely is quietly putting up a great year on the defensive end as well. For the third game in a row, not one player he’s been guarding has been able to penetrate with the ball. When Beekman sat, McKneely drew the assignment of guarding Taylor.

Minus

The team didn’t get a lot of bench production. All five starters scored in double figures. The entire second unit had a collective goose egg. Just last game out I was asserting that Leon Bond III ought to be starting over Andrew Rohde, but his time out he looked hesitant. Taine Murray, on the other hand, played only five minutes, but they were critical minutes with Reece on the bench. He had a very sweet assist to Jake Groves.

Plus

Question. Who is second, behind Beekman, on this team in minutes played? Andrew Rohde. Thus far he hasn’t looked like the player we all hoped for when he transferred in. Until today. The stats will tell you he was 5/14 and 3/8 from deep, but at least five of those shots were very late in the shot clock. Somebody had to hoist it up, and Rohde was the one. But he was the leading scorer on the team, doubling his season average of about six and a half points/game. And when Virginia went on a 17-4 run late in the first half and continuing into the second to take control of the game, Rohde hit two of the most important shots, both times with the clock drawing down. Rohde had three turnovers on the night, but all three were the result of him showing his point-guard vision: they were good passes, the execution wasn’t there.

On the other hand, he did have this one:

Plus

Great ACC ad for the men. Really awesome that Pittsburgh’s Jerome Lane breaking the backboard was featured. Of course, Pitt was in the Big East in 1988, but it’s still a great highlight, and a game I was watching when Lane literally brought the house down.

Plus

Hard not to be impressed with just how hard Jake Groves is playing. He is not a rim protector at all and not a particularly great rebounder, but man oh man, he is the hardest working player on the court. After scoring just a pair in the first half, Groves had 10 in the second frame, including going 2/3 from deep and breaking out of a 1/10 slump from beyond the arc. The bloodied jersey he had to change late in the second half attests to just how hard he’s playing.

Next Up: That single December ACC game that has become a fixture in the schedule, this time against Syracuse on Saturday, December 2nd. Game time is 12:00 noon and the game is on ESPN2.

Subscribe to the Cavaliers Now Newsletter to receive UVA sports news in your inbox first thing on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

To stay up to date on all Virginia Cavaliers sports news, follow CavaliersNow on social media:

Facebook: @CavaliersNow
Twitter: @CavaliersNowFN

See more Virginia men's basketball news and content: Virginia Men's Basketball on Sports Illustrated

See more Virginia sports news and content: Virginia Cavaliers on Sports Illustrated

Published
Val Prochaska
VAL PROCHASKA

Val graduated from the University of Virginia in the last millennium, back when writing one's senior thesis by hand was still a thing. He is a lifelong fan of the ACC, having chosen the Tobacco Road conference ahead of the Big East. Again, when that was still a thing. Val has covered Virginia men's basketball for seven years, first with HoosPlace and then with StreakingTheLawn, before joining us here at Virginia Cavaliers on SI in August of 2023, continuing to cover UVA men's basketball and also writing about women's soccer and women's basketball.

Home/Basketball