The Plus/Minus: Virginia Men’s Basketball Holds off Northeastern
Virginia escaped with a tight 56-54 victory over Northeastern on Saturday at John Paul Jones Arena. Val has the Plus/Minus to break down what we saw from the Cavaliers, who managed to find a way to win despite an all-around subpar performance.
Plus
A win is a win is a win. This was a classic Virginia basketball, a brutal rockfight. Virginia fell behind early 16-4 and the Cavaliers wouldn’t score their sixth point until almost nine minutes were gone. The Huskies were up 30-24 at half, only the second time they had held a team under 33 points in the first frame. That other team? Mighty Old Dominion, proud owners of a 3-6 record. This game was ugly.
Plus
For three years, Virginia fans have wanted to see what Reece Beekman could do when he was solely at the helm of the team. Today they saw it. Beekman was the game high scorer with 21 points and the only Cavalier to reach double digits. He was 9/18 from the floor while the rest of the team combined to go 13/35. He had five assists, most spectacularly this alley oop to Ryan Dunn.
Beekman knew he was going to Dunn the second he crossed half court, but he had to dummy the ball for five dribbles waiting for Dunn to get in position. This was a thing of beauty.
More than that, Beekman was the only player who could go get a bucket. Every point he scored tonight was in the paint; this was one of his easier forays to the rim.
Here’s the game highlights. Catch the winning bucket that Reece scored with 5.1 second remaining. That’s all on him. He knew there was no other reliable option for getting the game winner. Northeastern knew it, too. Beekman was an unreliable finisher at the rim for much of his career here at Virginia, but he put on a show tonight.
Minus
In the women’s basketball team’s loss to Wofford earlier in the day, the women shot 4/17 from beyond the arc. Incredibly, they shot the deep ball better than the men, who combined to go 2/14. Isaac McKneely had those two threes, interestingly back-to-back as the men closed a five-point deficit to take the lead after Northeastern had held the lead for 30+ minutes.
Minus
To add to the Cavaliers’ shooting woes, the team was 10/18 (or 55%) from the free throw line. I don’t know what the answer is, the team has clearly made shooting from the charity stripe a priority because these are very nervous players at the line. Dunn and Buchanan each airballed free throws. That’s hard to do.
Related: Matt's got the full game report here.
Plus
Leon Bond III and Elijah Gertrude each played about 15 minutes. Each had a +/- of 12. In a two-point game? When Beekman was a -4? These guys have got to play more. Andrew Rohde logged 31 minutes and didn’t score. He’s going to be a fine player for Virginia – he had game high six assists, including assisting on all three of Bond’s buckets – but he should be coming off the bench right now. Coach Tony Bennett said that Rohde hadn’t practiced at all the past nine days due to an illness. Which is just another reason he shouldn’t have gotten this many minutes.
Gertrude had the play of the night. Well, other than Beekman’s game winner. This clip doesn’t do the play justice because before this play, Gertrude blocked a shot and kept the ball in bounds before this coast-coast jaunt. Gertrude also converted the and-1.
Minus
This team was a step slow defensively for most of the game. Northeastern’s Chris Doherty, who spent two uninspiring and injury-ravaged years at Notre Dame, schooled Blake Buchanan and Jacob Groves in the paint. Continuing a season-long trend, Virginia has made a series of average big men look very, very competent. As Virginia made its final push late in the second half taking a 47-46 lead after being down 35-40, Dunn drew the assignment of stopping Doherty. There were no steals or blocks, but it was Dunn’s most effective 4-minute stretch of defense this season.
Minus
Virginia was outrebounded again. (Northeastern’s tallest player stands at just 6’8”.) The Huskies got 32 of their 54 points in the paint. They had 18 assists (to Virginia’s 13.) Virginia is making other teams’ ball movement look very good.
Next Up: Virginia travels to Memphis in their first true road game on Tuesday, December 19th. Game time is 7pm and the game will be on ESPN2. Memphis just beat Clemson, the most surprising team in the ACC thus far, 79-77. Getting to play Memphis immediately after Clemson should provide a good barometer on how Virginia and Clemson stack up against each other.
Memphis was led by point guard Jahvon Quinerly. Back before Reece Beekman, back before Kihei Clark, there was Quinerly. Bennett wanted him and recruited him hard and when he lost out on Quinerly, he pivoted to Clark. If Bennett had gotten Quinerly then there would be no Clark and no miracle versus Purdue. And Bennett probably wouldn’t have gone so hard after Beekman. Quinerly has had a speckled career. He originally went to Arizona and got caught up in Sean Miller’s shenanigans. He left immediately and went to play for Jay Wright at Villanova but couldn’t get any playing time. He transferred to Alabama, played well and was part of a very strong team two years ago. His minutes cratered last year, and here he is at Memphis. He’s playing well, but his pro stock has evaporated. I imagine he’s going to be pumped up for this game. And it’s going to be Beekman who is tasked with slowing him down. This should be the most interesting game of Virginia’s out-of-conference slate.
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