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Virginia Basketball: Revenge of the Blue Bloods

In November, Tony Bennett will field a basketball team that includes only four players with any playing experience at Virginia, and that includes point guard Kihei Clark, who’s generously listed at 5’9", transfer Braxton Key, and seven-footer Jay Huff who’s been buried so deep on the bench that he can’t read the jumbotron from there. And Mamadi Diakite, of course.

Those four will be joined by three others players who were on the championship roster but contributed nothing, including slow-footed Australian shooter Kody Stattmann, oft-injured athlete Frankie Badocchi, who is better known for playing piano than playing basketball, and redshirt big man Francisco Caffaro, who carries high hopes based solely on his performance in one prep FIBA tournament over a year ago.

Finally, Bennett will add five newcomers, including two-star Penn State decommit Justin McKoy, unranked JUCO transfer Tomas Woldetensae, late-blooming big man Kadin Shedrick, who may still redshirt despite the limited roster, superstar Sam Hauser, who definitely will redshirt, and, finally, four-star combo guard Casey Morsell.

On paper, that’s a huge step backwards from the team we watched win the National Championship. Duke and UNC are licking their chops. This is their year to put Virginia back in their place.

There’s a recurring myth that Tony Bennett takes under-the-radar recruits, coaches ‘em up, and turns them into college stars. The reality is that Bennett won the National Championship with some seriously talented players.

Last season, Virginia had six players ranked in the 247 Top 100 coming out of high school, and they each had at least three years of experience. Kyle Guy was a McDonald’s All American. Ty Jerome, Mamadi Diakite, Braxton Key, and DeAndre Hunter were all ranked in the Top 100, and all were arguably underrated. That’s a lot of talent. In fact, Virginia’s recipe for success seems to be to recruit really talented players – but not so talented that they leave after their first or second year. Talent (but not one-and-done talent) plus years of developmental experience is the Bennett formula.

Unfortunately, Virginia doesn’t seem to have many of those players on the roster. The raw talent may well be there, but not the experience. Of course, raw talent alone never defined Virginia basketball under Tony Bennett. It was coaching, player development, and years of experience for those talented players that delivered a championship. But next season, not only is his raw talent deficient (at least compared to the Championship squad), he’s also got very little experience on the roster.

Virginia’s Roster in 2019/20

2019/20

Years of Playing Experience at Virginia

Large

Mamadi Diakite (RS)

3

Jay Huff (RS)

2

Francisco Caffaro (RS)

0

Kadin Shedrick (RS)

0

Medium

Braxton Key

1

Frankie Badocchi (RS)

0

Kody Stattmann

0

Sam Hauser (RS)

0

Justin McKoy

0

Small

Kihei Clark

1

Casey Morsell

0

Tomas Woldetensae

0

Scholarship Players:

12

Scholarships Available:

1

It’s the lack of experience that is troubling.

When Tony Bennett arrived at Virginia, he laid out his strategy: he couldn’t out-recruit Duke and UNC for otherworldly one-and-done talent, so he would use experience instead. He’d develop and grow his players, and he’d deploy experienced, older, bigger, tougher, smarter, and more team-oriented players against talented youngsters. And it worked. But with the offseason departures, Bennett is lacking experience. Now he’s got to go head-to-head with Duke and UNC without his experience advantage.

Bennett and staff have proven they can develop players, provided they buy into a long-term vision, so the problem is not that the current roster’s talent is horribly deficient. It’s just that Bennett hasn’t shown the ability to develop new players into significant contributors in a single offseason.

Open Questions

As the roster stands today, Virginia has some huge questions looming. First, and most importantly, can Virginia execute the packline defense effectively with such an inexperienced squad? Second, where will the scoring come from?

The Packline Defense

Virginia’s defense, the storied Bennett "packline defense," is a man-to-man gap defense that requires communication and teamwork. There’s a reason Bennett devotes over 70% of his practice time to defense: it takes that much repetition to be good at the packline. Even at its best, it’s quite vulnerable to hot three point shooting teams. But without experienced players who are completely committed to playing collectively, it’s a very bad defense. Awful, even. That’s why, despite Bennett’s success, you don’t see widespread adoption of the packline.

That’s because if just one player is out of position or fails to understand his role, there will be an easy basket available. Jay Huff knows that well: he’s spent so much time on the bench despite his offensive firepower because he just hasn’t been effective, for example, at hedging and recovering. He’s been a defensive liability. With the current roster, there are plenty of good individual defenders, but can they play as one?

In addition to lacking experience with team defense, Virginia also seems to lack a shutdown defender. For the past few years, Virginia had long, athletic guards like Malcolm Brogdon and DeAndre Hunter who could shut down the opponent’s best scorer. Who gets that assignment now?

Braxton Key is a solid packline defender but isn’t a shutdown individual defender. Casey Morsell has the potential but he’s a freshman. Mamadi Diakite will be a shot-blocking menace but won’t venture that far from the basket. Virginia looks like they’re lacking in this regard.

Who Can Score?

Virginia needs to replace 49 of the 71 points per game they scored last year. Mamadi Diakite is their leading returning scorer at 7.4 points per game, followed by Braxton Key at 5.7 PPG and Kihei Clark at 4.5 PPG. Less than eighteen points from your top three players? That’s not much to build an offense around.

Last season, Virginia had three very good three point shooters in Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome, and DeAndre Hunter. All three had to be closely guarded anywhere on the court, and that opened up inside opportunities. But Virginia has no returning three point shooters. Yes, Jay Huff averaged 45% on very few attempts, but other than Huff, Virginia doesn’t have a single returning three point shooter averaging over 35%.

Opposing coaches will have a pretty obvious formula to limit Virginia’s offense: pack the paint until they prove they can make an outside shot.

Transfer Tomas Woldetensae was a near 50% three point shooter in the JUCO ranks and Casey Morsell has a good looking shot, so there’s some hope that the newcomers can help with the deep shot. But Virginia’s offense will necessarily look very different this season.

And beyond three point shooting, Virginia lacks scorers off the bounce. There is simply no one on the roster who has demonstrated the ability to create his own shot.

Tony Bennett will need some creative tweaks to the offense to generate points. Expect the trend towards continuous ball screens to continue, but Bennett will look to add a dimension he’s been missing for years: front court scoring. With a weaker backcourt that he’s had in years, Bennett will look to Diakite, Key, Huff, and, yes, Caffaro to put the ball in the basket.

Prognosis

Tony Bennett will likely start the season with a rotation that includes a heavy dose of Mamadi Diakite, Kihei Clark, and Braxton Key.

Clark is the only experienced ballhandler and will need to play every minute he can, at least until Bennett knows what he has with Morsell and Woldetensae.

Diakite will be the defensive stopper and is expected to continue his annual upward trajectory in both minutes played (22 last season) and points scored (7.4 last season). In the NCAA Tournament, Diakite averaged 32 minutes per game and scored 10.5 points per game. He’ll be asked to do that all season long.

Key, last season’s leading rebounder, will be asked to do a lot, too.

After that, it’s all question marks. But Bennett has a history of developing players – and those question marks turn into answers faster than expected.

The Anti-Tony Minutes Distribution

There are a few persistent myths about Tony Bennett, one being that he doesn’t play freshmen. That’s easily debunked, but it is true that he favors experience over raw talent. Now, of course, he’s sorely lacking in experience, so he’s going to need to play inexperienced players and work through their growing pains. Projecting the distribution of minutes for next season is more of a guessing game than in past years.

First of all, this assumes Kadin Shedrick still redshirts, which is likely but not certain. Second, it assumes Tony plays roughly seven deep by the time the ACC schedule starts, which would be a pretty short bench. Finally, it has major minutes for two newcomers, which will be dependent on their ability to learn the packline, and learn it overnight.

High Expectations

Virginia returns three players, Key, Clark, and Diakite, who all played critical roles in Virginia’s march to the Championship. All three are expected to be starters and team leaders.

Braxton Key

Key was Virginia’s leading rebounder last season and returns to high expectations. He’s a true glue guy who played his role off the bench to perfection.

But he’s going to need to spend a lot more time on the court this season. He averaged 20-30 minutes per game for his career and that will likely climb over 30. He needs to be a defensive stopper and play a lot of roles.

And he needs to contribute more on the offensive end. Key struggled offensively for most of last season. He ended up scoring 5.7 points per game on 43% shooting from the field, including a lot of missed point-blank layups. He was a 30% three point shooter and only made 73% of his free throws.

Key needs to turn up the intensity on the defensive end of the floor, and he needs to be more efficient on offense. But he’ll be a constant presence on the floor this year.

Projection: 35 MPG/10 PPG

Kihei Clark

Clark was a huge surprise last season. No one expected a 5’9" lightly recruited true freshman to play at all last season, and Clark went on to average 27 minutes per game and contribute to the biggest play of the season to finish off Purdue. He only averaged 5 points per game, but he made great decisions, rarely turned the ball over, and delivered pinpoint passes (including, of course, the pass). Even more, he created a new dimension to the Virginia defense by extending full court or three-quarter court pressure on opposing ballhandlers.

But Clark wasn’t much of a shooter and sometimes got into trouble by driving his diminutive frame into the paint. Yes, he made some big shots in the Tournament, but opposing coaches made the decision not to guard him, daring him to shoot while they maximized the pressure on Kyle Guy, Ty Jerome, and DeAndre Hunter. Clark had wide open looks because opposing coaches wanted him shooting. Without those playmakers around him to occupy the defense, Clark may look downright pedestrian.

It’s more than likely that Bennett and staff have tasked Clark with improving his shooting this offseason. Clark averaged 35% from the field, 34% from three point range, and 82% from the free throw line. All of those need to be better so that opposing defenses can’t afford to sag off him.

Projection: 35 MPG/5 PPG

Mamadi Diakite

Cavalier fans rejoiced at the news that Mamadi Diakite would return for a final season in orange and blue. Diakite is the equivalent of a five star one-and-done joining the roster: he single-handedly changes Virginia’s fortunes. Diakite elevated his game on both ends of the floor during the NCAA tournament and is an immediate favorite for ACC Defensive Player of the Year. If he can play like that all season long, Virginia will exceed expectations.

Projection: 25 MPG/10 PPG

Medium Expectations

The next four players, Morsell, Woldetensae, Huff, and Caffaro, all have question marks but need to play major minutes. All are talented, but expectations are tempered by lack of experience and obvious developmental needs.

Casey Morsell

Casey Morsell is a solidly-built 6’2" shooting guard with a reputation as a tough, physical defender with a long wingspan. Not very athletic or quick, but hardworking and relentless. On offense, he can score from anywhere. He is, to use a Bennett term, a "complete" player.

Morsell reminds some of Devon Hall: as a redshirt senior, Hall was a lockdown defender who averaged 32 minutes per game, chipping in 12 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists per game. But Hall didn’t start that way.

After his redshirt year, Devon Hall made steady progress every year, culminating in his selection in the NBA draft.

Morsell won’t have the benefit of a redshirt year; he’ll be needed immediately. And he’ll need to play more than the ten minutes per game that Hall contributed in his redshirt freshman year. No, Morsell needs to start his career with the kinds of contributions, especially defensively, that we saw from Hall in his redshirt junior year: 20+ minutes per game (and probably closer to 30) and nearly 10 points per game. That’s asking a lot.

Projection: 30 MPG/10 PPG

Tomas Woldetensae

Virginia’s newest transfer, Tomas Woldetensae, hails from Italy. His last name is not Italian, of course: it’s from the former Italian colony of Eritrea. In Eritrea, the prefix ‘wolde’ means ‘son of.’ So Virginia has landed an Eritrean-Italian-American. You can always tell an Eritrean-Italian-American by the impressive verticality of their hair.

Woldetensae played two years of high school at Victory Rock Prep in Bradenton, Florida, where he averaged about 10 points per game before landing at Indian Hills Community College, a junior college in Iowa. At Indian Hills, he played as a point guard his first year and then moved to shooting guard his second year and shot 47% from three point range and averaged 17 points per game.

Making 47% of his three pointers instantly makes him the best shooter in the ACC. Of course, none of those shots were against ACC defenders, so it remains to be seen if Woldetensae can hit similar numbers at this level.

Given that Virginia attempted the most three pointers in the ACC last season but returns no shooters (except low-volume Huff), Woldetensae fills a need. But he’s not known for his defense, so he’s got a steep learning curve ahead of him. It would be a surprise, however, if he can’t find his way onto the floor given his experience and high-percentage shot.

Projection: 25 MPG/10 PPG

Jay Huff

Poor Jay Huff. He’d have been a superstar by now if he played anywhere else. Anywhere that didn’t value defense, that is.

Huff has some eye-popping offensive skills, including gliding in for dunks, flying skyward for alley-oops, and draining open three pointers. But he’s a finesse player, not a bully. He’s a lot bigger than he was when he arrived in Charlottesville, but he’s still skinny and easily shoved around. An injury cost him most of last offseason; this offseason needs to be all about building core strength and adding mass.

If Huff emerges as a confident defender who knows where he’s supposed to be, he’ll be hard to get off the court. He’s a matchup nightmare on offense.

If Huff averages near twenty minutes per game and ten points per game, Virginia is right back in the hunt for an ACC championship.

Projection: 20 MPG/10 PPG

Francisco Caffaro

Francisco Caffaro, an Argentine via Australia, was a complete unknown to Virginia fans when he committed. He then appeared in an international FIBA tournament representing Argentina, and he was good. Eye-popping-good. He was physical, had a high motor, and showed a variety of moves under the basket.

After a redshirt year that was both to recover from injury and to acclimate to college basketball, fan expectations for Caffaro are high.

Too high.

Very few big men have been able to contribute significant minutes in their first year of play. For big men, the packline is a tough lesson to learn, and they limit their own minutes by fouling.

But even with Diakite and Huff ahead of him, Caffaro is going to be penciled in for nearly 20 minutes per game. In the limited looks we saw before his Virginia career, he appeared to have the endurance and toughness to do it. It’s not hard to imagine Caffaro playing the five to free up Huff and Diakite to do their damage.

If Caffaro plays like a breakout star, Virginia’s fortunes change. If Bennett has Diakite, Huff, and Caffaro dominating the paint, this team will be fun to watch.

Projection: 20 MPG/5 PPG

Something to Prove

For the next three players, expectations are low. Tony Bennett would much prefer an eight man rotation, which would mean one of these players will play a big role. But unless one of these three players makes a huge leap forward, they’ll all remain firmly planted on the bench. It would certainly be a relief – even a season-changer – if one of them can make a significant contribution off the bench.

Justin McKoy

Justin McKoy decommitted from Penn State to join Virginia. McKoy was regarded as a recruiting coup because North Carolina swooped in with a last-minute offer before McKoy chose Virginia. But McKoy was a marginal two-star recruit despite averaging over 20 points per game for his junior and senior seasons because he has clear developmental needs.

McKoy looks physically ready for the ACC. He’s got a chiseled 6’7" frame and can get to the basket. He’s got a nice handle and passes well. But he’s slow and not very explosive.

McKoy has the profile of a guy that Tony Bennett develops for a few years before he steps on the court as a finished product. But Bennett doesn’t have the luxury of redshirting McKoy. He’ll get early-season opportunities to see if he can carve out a role for himself.

Projection: 5 MPG/0 PPG

Kody Stattmann

Kody Stattmann, who appears to be growing into his 6’7" frame, can "shoot the piss out of the ball," according to Kyle Guy. We’ll have to take Kyle’s word for it, because Stattmann only connected on 43% of his shots and 27% of his three point attempts last season. And Stattmann displayed a shaky handle with a lousy assist-to-turnover ratio of 1:3, which is only partially redeemed by the miniscule sample size.

On defense, Stattmann looked like he was playing while standing in ankle-deep mud.

Of course, all of his playing time was in the waning moments of blowout victories, so it isn’t fair to draw conclusions, but Stattmann looks like he’ll struggle to find playing time because he’s a defensive liability and a turnover machine.

It may be, however, that Stattmann is still adjusting to his growing body, and the athleticism that was glaringly absent last season may return. Stattmann is now overseas preparing to pull on Australia’s green and gold in the FIBA Under-19 World Cup in Heraklion, Greece from June 29-July 7, so Virginia fans will have an opportunity to measure his progress.

With the dearth of shooters this season and his size, Stattmann has a window open for him. Can he make the most of it? It’s now or never.

Projection: 5 MPG/0 PPG

Francesco Badocchi

Frankie Badocchi plays the piano well, and Virginia fans have seen more footage of him playing "One Shining Moment" on the piano than they have of him playing basketball. Badocchi stepped away from the team for part of last season, and he’ll enter his third year in the program as an unknown.

In high school, Badocchi was a high-flying rim rocker but was never an elite prospect. Since then, he’s missed a lot of time due to injury. In his extremely limited minutes this past season, Badocchi looked tentative and not terrible athletic, which was a bit of a surprise, and not a good one. Of course, he only played garbage time minutes in twelve blowout victories, so judgment must be reserved. But expectations are low. Very low. Badocchi is a candidate for the breakout surprise player of the season, mostly because seeing him on the court at all would be a surprise.

Badocchi is in a tough spot because he appears to play the four position, which puts him behind a number of players. If he could play at the three, he’d have a lot more opportunities, but he doesn’t have the reputation as a shooter to pull it off. Badocchi faces long odds to contribute.

Projection: 5 MPG/0 PPG

No Expectations

The last two players, Shedick and Hauser, are expected to redshirt.

Kadin Shedrick

Kadin Shedrick is a late-blooming big man with a soft touch around the basket who exploded late on the recruiting calendar. But Shedrick is new to basketball and remains very raw. A developmental redshirt was the plan and Shedrick signaled his willingness to do so, saying, "I’m not a finished product… I’ll redshirt if I have to."

Of course, he said that before all the offseason attrition left Bennett with a pretty thin roster.

It’s still likely that Shedrick will redshirt. He would be behind Diakite, Huff, Caffaro, and Key in the frontcourt (and others when Bennett elects to play small), which means he’d forgo a developmental redshirt year for very limited minutes, like Stattmann did. But it’s possible Shedrick will be needed immediately. His offseason needs to include heavy doses of strength and conditioning. And eating. Lots of eating.

Projection: Redshirt

Sam Hauser

Sam Hauser is a fantastic recruiting coup for Tony Bennett: an experienced, mature player who can be expected to step into the starting lineup as soon as he’s eligible. Reports indicate he’s not pursuing a waiver to avoid a redshirt year, so unfortunately Virginia fans will have to wait until 2020 to see just how good he is. And he is good.

Projection: Redshirt

Early Expectations

Virginia opens the season with a road game in the Carrier Dome against Syracuse in a new experiment to kickoff the season with ACC contests. Syracuse returns eight players and benefits from a trip to Italy this summer to hone their play. Syracuse looks to play faster this season and will be a tough out-of-the-gate test of the new-look Cavaliers.

The rest of the early season schedule is an underwhelming lineup of out-of-conference cupcakes that should give Bennett plenty of opportunity for each of his ten scholarship players (excluding likely redshirts Hauser and Shedrick) to play extended minutes.

Just for fun, Bennett could roll out an all-international lineup with Diakite (Guinea), Caffaro (Argentina), Woldetensae (Italy), Stattmann (Australia), and Badocchi (Italy).

Next season will showcase a new-look Cavaliers offense. With their three outstanding outside shooters off to the NBA, Virginia isn’t likely to repeat as the ACC’s most prolific three point shooting offense. Virginia will need more balanced inside-outside scoring, which means Diakite, Key, Huff, and Caffaro will need to score inside to take the pressure off outside shooters like Morsell and Woldetensae. Does that include a return to blocker-mover? Bennett will tweak the offense with his new inverted strengths: last year, his backcourt was arguably the best in the nation. Now it’s nowhere close, but, with development, his frontcourt could compete for that honor.

Expect Bennett to start with experience in Diakite, Key, and Clark (and Kihei Clark, in only his second year, counts as one of the "experienced" players).

After that, Bennett has some decisions to make. Those three will provide a steadying influence, but not the most dynamic offense. Who has the best grasp of the packline defense? And who does he add to the mix to create scoring opportunities? With his shortage of experienced ballhandlers, how does he manage his backcourt?

With three stars off the the NBA, many Virginia fans have internalized that a down year is an acceptable price to pay for a National Championship. Tony Bennett has not.

Even with his limited experience and lack of strong Medium play, he has the ingredients for an NCAA berth, and probably a top 20 finish. And Bennett has another advantage: it appears to be a down year for the ACC as a whole. Duke and UNC sit at the top, as usual, but aren’t as strong as last year. Virginia won’t need to be as good as last year to win the ACC. But it would be the greatest coaching feat of Bennett’s career to win another ACC championship.



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