Virginia Basketball: Evaluating the Strengths & Weaknesses of UVA's Roster

William Smythe | Jul 26, 2024

Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports

Summer practices for the Virginia men's basketball team got underway in June, officially beginning the challenging project Tony Bennett and his staff have in front of them to fit together UVA's returning core with the numerous newcomers who joined the program this offseason. There will undoubtedly be a great deal of experimentation with various lineups that will likely continue into the start of the season in November, but the process of figuring out how to maximize the production of the roster has begun.

While Bennett and company work behind closed doors to get the most out this year's Cavalier squad, we're going to do our own personnel analysis by evaluating the potential strengths and weaknesses of the 2024-2025 Virginia men's basketball roster.

Strengths: Depth and Shooting

Practices this offseason should be a dogfight. Due to the transfer portal’s emergence, it’s a guessing game as to who will slot in where and how many minutes each player will contribute out of this new-look roster. Even sophomore walk-on Carter Lang — a 6’9 Charlottesville native who transferred in from Vanderbilt — made seven starts for the Commodores last season. There should be plenty of breakout candidates who may begin the season on the bench — redshirt center Anthony Robinson and junior transfer Elijah Saunders come to mind, as do freshmen Jacob Cofie and guard Ishan Sharma — yet Virginia should benefit from more contributors than in previous years.

Where does senior guard Taine Murray slot in after coming into his own at the end of the last season? The Kiwi averaged 26.2 minutes and nearly eight points a game in Virginia’s last four contests. Does returning guard Andrew Rohde surprise some folks and sharpen his offensive game after transitioning from St. Thomas (MN) to Virginia? Luckily, depth is a gift, and Coach Bennett should be more than happy with the options at his disposal. No more will Virginia fans have to endure the dilemma of graduate transfers playing fledgling minutes over young guys with higher potential. Youth will be a staple of this Cavalier team.

In 2023-24, Virginia struggled mightily to score the ball. The last few contests yielded some abysmal offensive efforts, capped by a 42-point outing against Colorado State in the First Four of the NCAA Tournament. Three-point shooting in Bennett’s system has often been a key instrument to the Cavaliers’ success, and those outside of McKneely, Murray, and graduate forward Jacob Groves simply did not pose a threat from behind the arc.

Beekman — a three-year starter and a defensive mastermind — only shot 31.3% from three, while fellow defensive nightmare Ryan Dunn converted a measly 20% of his attempts. Rohde finished the season with a 25.2% three-point clip. Most concerningly, each of these three averaged more than 25 minutes per game. Don’t get me wrong, Beekman and Dunn absolutely deserved their time on-court and spurred Virginia on to 23 wins in an up-and-down season. However, too few Cavaliers could keep defenses honest by stretching the floor. This year could be a different story.

McKneely and Murray’s return means that Virginia will at least have two bonafide shooting threats who have experience in the system. The former converted 81 of his 182 attempts last season (44.5%), while the latter cashed in on 18 of his 40 three-point tries (45%). Bennett also nabbed TJ Power — a true stretch four who will likely take over Groves’ role in the offense — and Saunders, a 32.2% three-point shooter yet a capable inside finisher as well. Saunders did excel on pick-and-pops, but he struggled to convert without his feet set. 

Lastly, freshman and Canadian native Ishan Sharma is a terrific catch-and-shoot option who could be a surprising candidate to push for minutes early next season. The 6’5 guard capped off his high school career as the Canadian National Player of the Year and could be next in line as a sharpshooter, following in the footsteps of Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome, Sam Hauser, and more. Hopefully, Bennett — an excellent three-point specialist himself — will make use of his new weapons.

READ MORE: Virginia Basketball: Projecting UVA's Starting Five for Next Season

Weaknesses: Youth and Inexperience

As exciting as this roster is, it’s hard to ignore the lack of production and minutes played at the high-conference level. McKneely, Murray, Saunders, and Florida State transfer Jalen Warley are the most battle-tested of the bunch, having all played considerable minutes for ACC and Mountain West rosters. However, last year’s combined points per game by the new transfer additions — Kansas State's Dai Dai Ames, Warley, Lang, Power, and Saunders — only comes out to 22.8. Each showed flashes and may have found himself in an undesirable system or were apart of talented rosters, i.e. Duke and San Diego State.

However, this also means that there’s a smaller sample size to work with when projecting the value added by this crop of transfers. The silver lining, though, is the strength of competition faced by these players in conferences such as the ACC, Big 12, Mountain West, and SEC. The transition will likely not be as stark for this class as it has been for mid-major talent who had to adjust to life in one of the nation’s best basketball leagues.

Youth in the modern college basketball landscape, and particularly at UVA, is a double-edged sword. On one side of the coin, you have the chance to develop your players within the unique system employed by Bennett. This clearly benefited the Virginia teams of the mid-to-late 2010s, who four times garnered a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament and relied less on transfers than they did upperclassmen who had begun their careers in Charlottesville. On the other side, players have arguably more freedom to seek greener pastures, whether it be on the basis of playing time or more promising NIL opportunities, and some may not have the patience to wait for their time to come at UVA.

READ MORE: Virginia Basketball: How Difficult is UVA's Non-Conference Schedule in 2024-25?

While All-American De’Andre Hunter redshirted his freshman season, as did All-ACC guard Devon Hall, two members of the Class of 2022 — forwards Isaac Traudt and Leon Bond III  — transferred after taking a redshirt year. Bennett’s emphasis on development is under attack, but there’s hope that this roster comes to appreciate just how transformative a couple years under his tutelage can be. It is clear that the Cavaliers have adjusted their mindset towards transfers, moreover, with Bennett hoping that the younger cohort of Ames, Power, Saunders, and Lang can stick around to develop within the system.

“Now it’s like, ‘Let’s try to build, if we can, at least a two-year model for the main core, maybe three, and try to keep our core together that way,' " Bennett said in an interview with Jeff White last month. “This will be tested at the end of next season if certain guys either aren’t playing or they’re whatever, because of how the rules are. Maybe that’s the case. Then you’ll know maybe it’s best just to do it with all seniors and build your program once a year."

Despite the promise of youth, COVID-19 eligibility still lingers, and rosters are generally older than they were pre-COVID. Virginia’s inexperience will inevitably come up against more seasoned rosters in the ACC and elsewhere in the non-conference slate, so the lack of valuable playing time at the highest level may be a thorn in Bennett’s side in the early going. That’s not to say that the Cavaliers needed graduate transfers, but they’ll be thrusting players into bigger roles at a younger age. If things gel and players believe in Bennett’s system, the long-term potential for this team is undeniable. It’s just a matter of whether glimpses of that long-term potential will begin to show this season or if the 2024-2025 campaign will be one of rebuilding.

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