Virginia Basketball: Examining UVA's Roster With Kihei Clark Returning

How Kihei Clark's return changes the outlook for the 2022-2023 Virginia basketball season

Author:
Matt Newton
Publish date:
Apr 20, 2022 5:29 PM EDT

After weeks of suspense and speculation, Virginia basketball finally announced on Monday evening that senior point guard Kihei Clark will be exercising his fifth year of eligibility and returning to play one final season for Tony Bennett and the Cavaliers in 2022-2023.

It is normally considered a good thing when a two-time All-ACC and national champion point guard with over 1,000 career points and 500 career assists returns to a team, but Clark's decision to come back has been met with mixed reactions on the part of the UVA fanbase. For the last four years, Clark has been one of the most polarizing players in recent Virginia basketball history.

As a first year, Clark immediately earned the love and respect of the entire Virginia community with his tenacious on-ball defense, non-stop motor and hustle, his intelligent and crafty playmaking abilities, and, of course, his season-saving pass to Mamadi Diakite without which there would be no 2019 National Championship.

In his sophomore season, Clark was essentially handed the keys to the UVA offense with each of the ball-handlers from the 2019 team gone to the NBA. Clark bore the lion's share of the offensive responsibilities, as well as the blame when the team struggled to score. That theme has continued to tag Clark throughout the rest of his UVA career, even as he has done much to add to his already legendary college resume. After struggling through the first half of the season, the 2019-2020 Cavaliers hit their stride at the most important part of the season, thanks to the nation's best defense and several clutch plays by Clark: a buzzer-beating three-pointer at Virginia Tech, a reverse layup in the final minute to beat Florida State, a clutch pass to Tomas Woldetensae for the buzzer-beater at North Carolina, and a dagger pull-up three-pointer to beat Louisville. Anyone who says Clark hasn't done anything since the pass to Diakite has a selective memory at best when it comes to Virginia basketball.

The 2019-2020 season was Clark's best statistically. He averaged 10.8 points, 5.9 assists, 4.2 rebounds, and 37.5% three-point shooting - all career-bests. The entire offense went through his hands, but he made it work down the stretch. The Cavaliers were clicking on all cylinders right on time, ending the regular season having won each of their last eight games and 11 of the last 12. Who knows what would have happened had COVID-19 not derailed the ACC and NCAA Tournaments in 2020.

The following season, UVA's roster had more of a similar structure to the 2019 team in the sense that there were talented shooters on the floor - Trey Murphy, Sam Hauser, Jay Huff - but those scorers were not ball-handling guards like Ty Jerome and Kyle Guy. Those duties still fell on Clark and newcomer Reece Beekman, who immediately garnered a great deal of playing time due to his showstopping abilities on the defensive end of the floor. The 2020-2021 Cavaliers, who otherwise were a very talented offensive team, were held back by running two point guards who could not reliably shoot the three ball. Opposing defenses could help off of both Beekman and Clark and they rarely made them pay for it, with the distinct exception of Beekman's buzzer-beating three-pointer against Syracuse in what was Virginia's final victory of the season.

Playing Beekman and Clark at the same time meant one of them was always playing out of position at the shooting guard role, as was the case this season. Virginia struggled to shoot the ball this year the same way the 2019-2020 team did, but this year's Cavaliers did not have an elite defense to fall back on - 60.1 points per game allowed in 2021-2022 vs. 52.4 ppg allowed in 2019-2020. Clark was once again left trying to save a stagnant offense and he attacked it as he always does. But every time he had a shot blocked or turned it over, UVA fans were given all the ammo they needed to blame the team's struggles on him.

Frustrations boiled this year with the perception of a "bad season" for UVA basketball. Let's get one thing straight: this was not a bad season. Virginia fans have been spoiled from the last decade of Tony Bennett basketball. For UVA's standards from 2013-2021, sure, this season was a disappointment. But there are a lot of major conference basketball programs that would love to see their teams win 21 games and go to the quarterfinals of the NIT. A down year, maybe, but not a bad one.

With Clark returning for another season, there is apprehension in the UVA fanbase about next season being a repeat of this season in terms of offensive struggles, limited player rotations, and - ultimately - an unsuccessful season followed by departures to the transfer portal. Clark's return means that Virginia brings back its entire starting five and its six top scorers. The only player who is not coming back that played significant minutes last season is Kody Stattmann. And while there are plenty of reasons to believe the same roster will have more success next season - another year of experience, team chemistry, development, and comfort in the Pack Line Defense for the transfers - the pessimistic view suggests that the ceiling for a Virginia team almost identical to last year's team is still lower than has become the standard for UVA basketball in the last decade.

There are also concerns that Clark's return means another year of Virginia playing two point guards for extended minutes, which has proven to be an issue for the Cavaliers offensively. Reece Beekman is bursting with potential and many are eager to see Clark pass the baton to Beekman to run the UVA offense as the true point guard.

Finally, there is the issue of minutes, which is a finite resource. Kihei Clark has played at least 34 minutes per game in each of the last three seasons. Those 34 minutes going to Clark means that they aren't going to someone else. And with the transfer portal posing a dangerous threat to take players away, especially young talented players who are eager for playing time, it is understandable that some UVA fans are worried about the possibility of any of the incoming four-star recruits following the same path as Igor Miličić Jr. or Jabri Abdur-Rahim.

Those are fair points, but there are also plenty of reasons why next season will be drastically different than this one. The idea that the rotations will be the same next year because the bulk of the roster is returning relies on the assumption (fallacy) that first years do not play at Virginia. Tony Bennett does not have a rule about freshmen not getting minutes - he simply will not let someone on the floor based on their high school mixtape or recruiting ranking. He has to see it earned in practice, something he made clear in his final postgame press conference of the season.

“There's no substitute for experience. We must improve every player that returns in this program," Bennett said following Virginia's season-ending loss to St. Bonaventure. "They better take a step in terms of commitment and their strength and their ability and to commit and work. If they don't want to, they shouldn't be here. But I believe they will. That's the entry for this high level. So they got to decide, and nothing's guaranteed, playing time is not guaranteed; you work, you come together... Again I want to be real with the new guys coming in, everybody's all excited about this new class, they'll have their work to do. It's hard coming in as a first year. You’ve got to have patience and if they're good enough, they'll play. If they're not ready, they'll improve and they'll get ready at some point just like the guys in this program."

There is no guarantee that Kihei Clark will continue to play 35 minutes a game, especially if other players on the roster show that they have earned more playing time. Players like London Perrantes, Kihei Clark, and Reece Beekman earned the opportunity to play as first years in practice. Bennett did not see what he needed to see from Igor Miličić Jr. or Taine Murray this season or from Carson McCorkle or Jabri Abdur-Rahim last season. With the state of the portal, it makes sense that three of those four players are no longer with the team - those were most likely the right decisions for those guys. Tony Bennett is gong to give a fair shot to the incoming crop of first years. If they are as good as advertised, then the UVA coaching staff is going to have a "problem" that most coaches in college basketball would love to have: too much depth.

Virginia ran a rotation of seven players this season and rarely dipped further into the bench than that. Next season, Tony Bennett could find himself with as many as nine or even ten players capable of contributing quality minutes:

Returning players: Reece Beekman, Kihei Clark, Armaan Franklin, Jayden Gardner, Kadin Shedrick, Francisco Caffaro, Taine Murray, Chase Coleman

Losses: Kody Stattmann (graduated), Igor Miličić Jr. (transfer), Carson McCorkle (transfer), Jayden Nixon (transfer), Malachi Poindexter (transfer)

Additions: Isaac McKneely, Isaac Traudt, Leon Bond, Ryan Dunn

Isaac McKneely, the Gatorade Player of the Year in West Virginia, could be the most ready-to-play of the bunch due to his experience playing the Pack Line Defense in high school. McKneely is expected to challenge for minutes at shooting guard. Isaac Traudt, who similarly won the Gatorade Player of the Year award in Nebraska, comes in at 6'10" and 215 pounds, measurements that already make him a potential candidate for playing time at power forward. If he can get up to par on the defensive end, his ball-handling and shooting abilities will make him hard to keep on the bench. Leon Bond and Ryan Dunn will need to bulk up and, of course, go through the harsh learning curve of the Pack Line Defense, but they too have the offensive skill set and athleticism to compete in the ACC.

Additionally, Taine Murray is expected to take another step as he enters his sophomore season. He showed flashes of potential, especially as a perimeter sharpshooter, in limited minutes last season. After another summer of integration in the program and the defense, it would not be surprising to see Murray play a much bigger role in year two.

Virginia brings back nearly every key contributor from a squad that won 21 games and played like an NCAA Tournament team for the second half of the season - that is a rarity in this day and age of college basketball. Those players will be challenged in practice by a highly-ranked incoming recruiting class of incredibly talented athletes who will be eager to earn their way to significant playing time. Kihei Clark's return only means another season of having a leader with national championship-winning experience on the roster. If these are problems, then I'd say Tony Bennett has the right kind of problems to sort out heading into the 2022-2023 college basketball season.

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