Sanchez Gives Injury Update on Dai Dai Ames on Coach's Corner Radio Show

Matt Newton | 3 Hours Ago

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The odds are once again stacked against Virginia (6-4) for its next game, as No. 21 Memphis (8-2) is set to visit John Paul Jones Arena on Wednesday night. The Tigers crushed the Cavaliers 77-54 last year when these two teams played in Memphis. And while this return meeting will take place in Charlottesville, Memphis seems to have gotten better since last season, while Virginia appears to have gotten much worse.

If the Hoos were going to have any hope of exacting revenge on Memphis, they absolutely needed to get Dai Dai Ames back from injury. Of course, they'll need more than a few other things to go their way, but as for that first step? So far, so good.

Virginia interim head coach Ron Sanchez held his weekly Coach's Corner radio show on Monday night at the Dairy Market in Charlottesville with Voice of the Cavaliers John Freeman and Kyle Guy joined the show as well. Towards the end of the show, Freeman asked Sanchez about the status of Dai Dai Ames, who went down with an ankle injury in the first half of the game against SMU on December 7th and missed the following game against Bethune-Cookman.

Here's how Sanchez answered that question:

John Freeman: A lot of guys and girls want to know, Dai Dai, how is his ankle doing?

Ron Sanchez: He practiced today.

John Freeman: He's good to go?

Ron Sanchez: Yep.

John Freeman: How about that? We got Dai Dai back.

Assuming that this is a true confirmation that Ames will be available for Wednesday night's game against Memphis - acknowledging that players can return to practice and still not be fit to play in games yet - then this is huge news for the Cavaliers. It doesn't mean that we're going to pick Virginia to beat Memphis outright - you'll have to wait for our game preview and prediction for that - but it does mean UVA has a much better chance than if Ames was not going to be on the floor.

How can Virginia be so reliant on a player who is currently the team's fifth-leading scorer at 8.1 points per game?

Well, for starters, those numbers are slightly skewed because Ames played just seven minutes against SMU and scored two points before exiting with his injury and similarly played just 10 minutes and scored only two points in UVA's season-opener against Campbell. Those games are dragging down the per-game averages for Ames, who has twice led Virginia in scoring and has scored in double figures four times.

If you don't include any filters for minimum shot attempts, Ames is also technically Virginia's leading three-point shooter. He's 10/18 from beyond the arc this season, good for 55.6%. Isaac McKneely is connecting on 46.9% of this threes on more than triple the amount of attempts, but Ames is still shooting the ball really well.

There's also the point guard problem. Virginia knew replacing Reece Beekman would be an uphill battle, but a committee of Jalen Warley, Christian Bliss, and Dai Dai Ames should have been enough to get the job done. Instead, Warley hit the portal after Tony Bennett's retirement, Bliss has still yet to make his collegiate debut as he deals with a foot injury (maybe Freeman can ask Sanchez about that next week), and the injury to Ames left Virginia without a natural point guard available for the Bethune-Cookman game.

But the biggest reason Ames is so important for the Cavaliers is because he might be the only player on the roster capable of consistently attacking the paint off the dribble and creating his own shot. When Virginia's offense gets stale and stagnant, which happens every game and often multiple times each game, Ames is the one who can get things going by knifing to the basket for a tough finish, thus opening things up for other players as well.

For evidence of the value Ames provides for Virginia offensively, look no further than what has happened since he got hurt. In the SMU game, UVA led by seven points with 10 minutes to go. The Cavaliers proceeded to make zero field goals in those last 10 minutes, getting outscored 25-6 by the Mustangs en route to their first loss in an ACC opener in 16 years.

In the next game against a 2-6 Bethune-Cookman team, one of the worst opponents on UVA's schedule this season, Virginia made just one field goal - a Blake Buchanan dunk - in the first 11 minutes and 35 seconds of the game and was stuck on three points until the 7:49 mark of the first half.

In more than 20 minutes of consecutive game action between the SMU and BCU games, Virginia made one shot and scored nine total points. The Cavaliers got back on track with a good second half and defeated Bethune-Cookman by a respectable 59-41 score, but the performance did nothing to inspire confidence.

That is why it is so important that Dai Dai Ames appears to be set to return after missing just one full game with that ankle injury. Virginia will likely still have scoring droughts and is likely still headed towards another loss to a good team on Wednesday night. But with Ames' return, there is a glimmer of hope for the Cavaliers to make this a competitive game and, more importantly, it means that the ankle injury did not end up being as serious as we feared it could have been and Virginia can maintain some optimism towards steadily improving as we approach the full ACC schedule in 2025.

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