UVA Basketball: Dai Dai Ames Injury Exacerbates Point Guard Situation
The point guard situation for Virginia basketball has been and continues to be something of a roller coaster ride. Even before he retired, Tony Bennett was already facing a significant challenge at that position as the Cavaliers were without an All-ACC point guard on their roster for the first time in a decade. Bennett, and now interim head coach Ron Sanchez, sought to replace Reece Beekman by committee with transfers Jalen Warley and Dai Dai Ames, returning junior Andrew Rohde, and redshirt freshman Christian Bliss.
Well, we're one month into the season, and we'll just say that even the best laid plans...
Bennett's retirement induced Warley to enter the portal. Christian Bliss still has yet to make his collegiate debut as a foot injury has caused him to miss the first nine games of this season. And now, Dai Dai Ames, who is perhaps the only player on the roster capable of consistently touching the paint on dribble drives, is down with an ankle sprain suffered in Saturday's 63-51 loss at SMU.
That leaves Andrew Rohde, who has played much better this season, but whose natural position is not really point guard, as the team's lone ball-handler and offensive facilitator.
Ron Sanchez did not have an update on the severity of the injury to Ames, who landed awkwardly on a contested layup in the first half on Saturday and exited after playing just seven minutes. As for Bliss, who had made a social media post on Friday that seemed to indicate that his return was imminent, Sanchez says he is still considered "day to day."
"I don't really know what happened to Ames, except that he rolled his ankle. How serious it is, we'll find out. And Christian [Bliss] is basically day to day right now," Sanchez said in his postgame press conference after the loss to SMU, which broke Virginia's 16-game winning streak in ACC openers dating back to before Tony Bennett became head coach at UVA.
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With Ames joining Bliss on the sidelines, Virginia turned to shooting guard Isaac McKneely as well as true freshman guard Ishan Sharma to handle some more ball-handling responsibilities. A 6'5" sharpshooter from Ontario, Sharma is also far from a natural point guard.
"We want Ish [Ishan Sharma] to continue to come. You know, he handles the ball. He could do some things. He made a shot today. He made some decent plays. He got other guys some shots," Sanchez said. "I think his experience today hopefully will help him later. We're encouraged by him. He was thrusted into the position today, and I think he did a really good job defensively as well."
It remains to be seen how long Dai Dai Ames will be out with his ankle injury, though there's an argument to be made that the Cavaliers can afford to let him rest and rehab until ACC play resumes on New Year's Eve. Before then, Virginia plays three non-conference games at home, with two of them being buy games against Bethune-Cookman and American, and the other being a tough matchup against No. 16 Memphis (7-1), a team the Cavaliers were unlikely to beat even with a healthy Ames.
Beyond that, though, Virginia will desperately need to get Ames and Bliss back on the floor and bring stability to the point guard position if Ron Sanchez and the Cavaliers want to have any hope of getting their season back on track.
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