Virginia Basketball Beats Coppin State 62-45 | Key Takeaways

Matt Newton | Nov 11, 2024

Virginia Athletic

Virginia improved to 2-0 on the season with a 62-45 victory over Coppin State on Monday night at John Paul Jones Arena. Four different Cavaliers scored in double figures and UVA built a 16-point halftime lead and things were pretty comfortable the rest of the way.

Here are five quick takeaways from Virginia's win over Coppin State.

Dai Dai Ames just earned the starting point guard job

Yes, the opponent was one of the worst Virginia will face all season, so the positive outcomes of this game are watered down a little bit. But with that said, anyone who watched both of UVA's first two games of the season are undoubtedly coming away thinking Dai Dai Ames has to be this team's starting point guard. With Andrew Rohde out with a back injury and Christian Bliss still sidelined with a foot injury, Ames was left as the team's lone point guard and he seized the opportunity with a very good all-around game. Ames scored UVA's first basket of the game, a lefty layup plus a foul, and went on to stuff the stat sheet with 13 points on 5/8 shooting, three rebounds, two blocks, and three assists with zero turnovers. Most importantly, Ames looked confident with his three-point shot, knocking down two threes on just three attempts. UVA will need Andrew Rohde to give the team good minutes at point guard, but Ames should have the starting job moving forward.

Isaac McKneely should never stop shooting

Ron Sanchez said in the postgame press conference that it's extremely important that Isaac McKneely keep shooting, noting that he thought McKneely passed up way too many open looks in the first half. The game was close until the waning minutes of the first half, when McKneely made a trio of three-pointers in a two-minute span to give the Cavaliers some separation. With Coppin State in an extended zone defense, the solution was for UVA to bombard the Eagles with threes and McKneely delivered that knockout blow. McKneely finished 4/8 from beyond the arc with 14 points and also contributed six rebounds, three assists, and three steals.

Elijah Saunders and Jacob Cofie continue to impress

Virginia had a distinct size advantage over Coppin State, but couldn't enforce that edge with the Eagles sitting in a zone defense. That's where the versatility of Saunders and Cofie became pivotal for the Cavaliers, as they were able to stretch the floor and work some more of that high-low action that was working well with Blake Buchanan in the first game. Saunders finished with 15 points on 5/9 shooting and recorded five rebounds, one assist, and one block, while Cofie followed up his 16-point debut with his first-career double-double, recording 11 points on 3/5 shooting, 11 rebounds, two assists, three blocks, and four steals. Cofie and Saunders both went 4/4 from the free throw line. It will be interesting to see how often Virginia goes super big with Cofie, Saunders, and Buchanan on the floor, but UVA seems to thrive when Cofie and Saunders share the floor together.

More: Read Val's Plus/Minus breakdown of the game here.

Should we be concerned about TJ Power?

Before we get into shooting, we must applaud TJ Power for the other ways he impacted the game. Power finished with six rebounds, one assist, and one block and generally made the right basketball plays most of the time. With that said, Virginia brought him here to shoot the three ball and it just hasn't been there yet. Power shot 1/2 from three and scored three points against Campbell and then shot 1/6 from beyond the arc and scored just three points again this time around. His shot looks good and a few of them just barely rimmed out, but Virginia is going to need Power to be a reliable three-point shooter this season.

We still don't know how good this team is going to be defensively

Coppin State shot 28.0% from the floor and 21.1% from three in the game, scoring 45 points total. Those stats are pretty empty, though, as the Eagles just aren't a good basketball team and missed a ton of open shots. The pieces seem to be there for this to be a classic Virginia defensive team that can smother opponents - Cofie, Saunders, and Buchanan should be able to defend the paint effectively and Dai Dai Ames showed some good instincts as an on-ball defenders. But there is just not a lot that can be gleaned from these two first two games of the season to figure out if this team can compare to some past UVA teams that had elite defenders. We won't have to wait much longer to find out, though, as Virginia enters a tough stretch with neutral site games against Villanova, Tennessee, and then either Baylor or St. John's coming up.

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