Though Denied Success in March, Reece Beekman Grateful for Career at Virginia
Just a few minutes after finishing what is almost assuredly the final college basketball game of his career, Reece Beekman was asked to put his time at Virginia in perspective, which to say the least, is a difficult question to answer at any time, much less immediately following his career ending in brutal fashion as the Cavaliers fell to Colorado State 67-42 in the First Four of the NCAA Tournament on Tuesday night in Dayton.
But as usual, Beekman was up to the challenge.
"That was a tough way to go out. Didn't imagine it to go that way at all," said Beekman, whose desire to win an NCAA Tournament game was one of the main reasons he returned to Virginia for his senior season after testing the waters of the NBA Draft. "But I'm just blessed to have a career here of four years. I've been able to play since almost basically day one. I know that's not usual."
Beekman having been a starter all four years at Virginia, a notoriously tough place to get playing time as a freshman under Tony Bennett, is one of the most compelling testaments to what a gifted player he is. Naturally, his ability to get and stay on the floor early on stemmed from his defensive prowess. From the first days of his first year to the final game of his senior season, Beekman demonstrated without a shadow of a doubt that he is one of the best on-ball defensive guards in college basketball.
Although the result of the game was the opposite of ideal, it was fitting that Beekman ended his collegiate career by once again shutting down the other team's best player and one of the most talented offensive players in the country. Colorado State's Isaiah Stevens came in averaging 16.5 points and 7.0 assists per game and sitting in fourth among active Division I men's basketball players in career scoring with 2,335 career points. Stevens also leads all active men's basketball players in career assists and was an All-Mountain West selection in each of his five seasons at Colorado State.
But on Tuesday night in Dayton, Beekman put on one final defensive masterclass by putting Stevens in a straightjacket, holding him to just five points on 2/5 shooting. Two of those five points came with Beekman not guarding him. Stevens recorded four assists, but also turned the ball over three times. It's nearly impossible to keep track of the number of times Beekman has bothered and harassed some of the most prolific scorers and playmakers in college basketball into their worst shooting nights as it's happened so many times throughout his career.
"Right now, it probably sounds or feels like hollow praise, but knowing how Reece led us and to get to this point, to win 23 games and where they finished in the ACC is a credit to them," said Tony Bennett after the game. "But I look at the job Reece did on their excellent point guard, Isaiah Stevens. He did the job there."
Unfortunately for Beekman, he was also carrying the entire burden of UVA's inept offense on his shoulders. With Isaac McKneely, Jake Groves, and company badly missing wide-open shots, Beekman had no other choice but to force things and attack the rim at will. He had nothing left in the tank on his jump shots, going 4/16 from the floor and 0/3 from three, but still finished with 15 points, scoring a few tough layups through contact and getting to the free throw line, where he atoned for his misses at the ACC Tournament last week by going a perfect 7/7 from the charity stripe. Beekman had four assists to just one turnover and should have had five or six more assists than that had his teammates been able to make an open shot. But alas, Virginia went 14/56 from the floor in what was the team's worst shooting performance of the season.
As a result, Beekman finished the season with 212 assists, two shy of John Crotty's single-season UVA program record. Beekman finished third in career assists with 636, trailing only Crotty and Kihei Clark. He had previously bested Othell Wilson's Virginia career steals record with 228 and Beekman finished with 68 steals this season, third-most in a single season at UVA behind Wilson's 69 in 1983-1984 and his own record of 73 from the 2021-2022 season. Beekman concluded his career 38th on Virginia's all-time scoring list with 1,195 career points.
It will be records like that and the amazing individual accolades as well as his tremendous leadership that define his career at Virginia, not the lack of success at the NCAA Tournament.
"So I'm just looking back at it, happy about the experience, happy being back here doing my last year of college. It was just a blessing," said Beekman. "I don't want this game to define my whole season or my whole career. Yes, it's tough, but I'm glad to be in this position."
A pair of first-round upsets as a No. 4 seed sandwiched around an NIT appearance his sophomore year and then this up-and-down roller coaster of a season that ended with a blowout loss in Dayton can do nothing to take away the legacy Beekman leaves in the annals of UVA men's basketball history.
Beekman became just the third player in ACC history to win back-to-back ACC Defensive Player of the Year awards. Of all the great defensive players to come through Virginia under Tony Bennett - Malcolm Brogdon, Darion Atkins, Isaiah Wilkins, De'Andre Hunter, and more - Reece Beekman is the only one to win that award twice. He also was a three-time All-ACC selection and a three-time ACC All-Defensive Team selection and led the conference in assist to turnover ratio in each of the last three seasons and led the league in total assists in two of the last three years, incredible accomplishments given the effort he was also giving on the defensive end.
"To be a back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year and the only guard in the history of ACC basketball [to do that]. You think of those fine players, those fine defenders, remarkable," Bennett said. "The thing that was so amazing to me about Reece, who I was so proud of, is he had to be right on both ends of the floor for us to be competitive in games. And it forced him, and I think offensively - he had 64 more assists than any other point guard in the league - offensively what he's had to do."
Though a successful run in the NCAA Tournament ultimately eluded him, there is no understating what Reece Beekman has meant to the Virginia men's basketball program over the last four years and he has a very brought future ahead of him in the professional ranks.
"It doesn't change anything about this guy's career and what he's done," Bennett said of Beekman. "For four years I've never seen a guy get better and better [like this]. Someone's going to be very fortunate at the pro level to have this guy."
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