Dynamic Duo Ready to Roll
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By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
COLUMBIA, S.C. – Ty Jerome went first. In September 2014, early in his junior year at Iona Prep in New Rochelle, N.Y., Jerome committed to the University of Virginia, after which a sharp-shooting phenom from Indianapolis started following him on social media.
“I was like, ‘Who is this kid?’ ” Jerome recalled Thursday afternoon.
About six weeks later, that kid, Lawrence Central High junior Kyle Guy, followed Jerome’s lead and committed to UVA. Their relationship grew over social media, and they were selected for the same team at the Mary Kline Classic, an all-star game in New Jersey.
“We played together for the first time there,” Jerome said.
Guy invited himself to stay at Jerome’s house in New York that weekend in May 2015, he recounted with a smile Thursday. “We’ve been friends ever since,” said Guy, who like Jerome attended the NBPA Top 100 camp at John Paul Jones Arena in June 2015.
Nearly four years later, it’s hard to imagine one on the court without the other. The 6-5 Jerome and the 6-2 Guy started only three games together as freshmen in 2016-17, but since then they’ve formed one of the nation’s premier tandems.
“This is a backcourt of gamers,” ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said on Feb. 11 after Virginia rallied to defeat North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “They might not look like they’re tough competitors — they look like boy scouts – but, man, they play like they’re in a motorcycle gang.”
For Guy and Jerome, whose recruiting class also included De’Andre Hunter and Jay Huff, the final phase of their junior seasons begins Friday. At approximately 3 p.m., UVA (29-3), the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament’s South Region, meets No. 16 seed Gardner-Webb (23-11) in a first-round game at Colonial Life Arena.
That’s the arena in which Jerome and Guy combined for 43 points in UVA’s 69-52 victory over South Carolina on Dec. 19.
“They’re complete,” UVA head coach Tony Bennett said after that game. “They obviously can shoot the ball from deep … but they’re capable [also] of putting it on the floor, driving, drawing fouls, or hitting pull-ups, floaters, and they’ll make the right passes.”
Guy, a third-team All-American in 2017-18, was a repeat selection on the All-ACC first team this season. Jerome, who made the All-ACC third team last season, moved up to the second team this year.
“I use them as examples for my young guards to watch those two guys, because they’re such big-time winners,” Notre Dame head coach Mike Brey said. “They know who they are, and they play within themselves … They’re assassins and winners. They’ve had great careers.”
Guy, whose release is as quick as that of any college player, is averaging a team-high 15.6 points and shooting 46.3 percent from beyond the arc. His career 3-point shooting percentage (44.1) ranks first all-time both at UVA and in the ACC. He buried a career-high eight treys – one shy of the program record – in Virginia’s win over Syracuse at the Carrier Dome this month.
“Some of the shots Kyle hit were unreal,” Jerome said.
Duke’s Hall of Fame coach, Mike Krzyzewski, has compared Guy to former ACC great J.J. Redick. Florida State head coach Leonard Hamilton is another fan of No. 5.
“You watch him play on film, and you just don’t believe a guy is capable of being that confident when he shoots the ball,” Hamilton said.
It doesn’t matter how off-balance Guy might appear when he goes up to shoot, said Hunter, a 6-7 redshirt sophomore who also made the All-ACC first team. “He’s going to make it.”
Jerome leads the ACC in assists (5.4 per game). He’s first on the team in steals as well and averages 13.0 points per game. He’s shooting 39.7 percent from 3-point range, which ranks fourth among ACC players, and has almost unlimited range. With 166 career assists, Jerome ranks eighth all-time at UVA.
“He’s just such a multi-dimensional player,” Gardner-Webb head coach Tim Craft said. Thursday.
Jerome, who wears jersey No. 11, is a nightmare to defend, Craft said, “because his change of pace is so good and he’s such a good shooter. So you’ve got to be tight to him, or he can shoot it from about 22, 23 feet at a high level. So he creates some problems for you defensively just from a one-on-one standpoint, but then in their actions with the pick-and-rolls and the down screens.”
Guy estimated that at least half of his baskets as a Cavalier have come off passes from Jerome. The percentage would be higher, Guy said, but in 2016-17 “we had a roller-coaster year, so whenever he was playing, I was on the bench, and then vice versa. And then finally towards the end of the season we started playing together a little bit.”
Bennett’s assistants include Brad Soderberg, who’s been head coach at five schools: Loras College, South Dakota State, Wisconsin, Saint Louis and Lindenwood University. Soderberg played at Wisconsin-Stevens Point for Bennett’s father, Dick, and has seen countless talented guards in his three decades in coaching.
Guy and Jerome, Soderberg said, rank among the best.
“I think the first thing that sticks out is their ability to shoot the ball collectively,” Soderberg said. “I’ve seen a lot of combinations of good guards, but seldom do you have to respect both the 1 and the 2 from distance like you have to do with those two guys.
“I think the other thing is that they’ve logged so many games already. Usually guys have to wait their turn, and [Guy and Jerome] didn’t have to wait very long. And I think because of the fact that they’ve played in arguably the best conference in America and played the number of games that they have as a combination, they know what each other’s going to do five seconds before they do it.”
UVA staff would not have recruited Guy and Jerome had the coaching staff not believed they could become productive players in the ACC. But did the coaches expect them to be so good so quickly? Maybe not.
“In their sophomore and junior years, they’ve won 60 basketball games,” Soderberg said. “So anyone that says, ‘That’s exactly what I envisioned,’ they’re lying to you. But to their credit, they’ve been very receptive to what Coach Bennett has to offer. He’s demanding on guards, because he was an excellent guard himself. He’s pressed them, he’s worked them hard, and they’ve accepted it. They’ve listened to what he’s had to say, and I think because of that they’ve experienced the success that they’ve had.”
In 2017-18, Guy and Jerome helped Virginia sweep the ACC’s regular-season and tournament titles. Their NCAA tournament experience was considerably less satisfying. In a first-round game in Charlotte, N.C., UVA became the first No. 1 seed ever to lose to a No. 16 seed, falling to UMBC at the Spectrum Center.
That historic loss fueled the Cavaliers throughout the offseason, and it’s never far from their minds, in part because they’ve fielded hundreds of questions about it since last year’s NCAA tournament.
On the court, however, “I don’t even think about it,” Guy said. “I’m focused on what’s in front of me, because if you’re too focused on the past, you’re not going to be able to move forward.
“So, yeah, it’s a chip on our shoulder, but it doesn’t define us. We’re just trying to move past it and let the inspiration and motivation behind it take us somewhere we haven’t been.”
In two Facebook posts last year, Guy described at length how the UMBC loss affected him. Jerome has kept his thoughts more private. In August, though, he said that if “it doesn’t motivate you, losing like that, I don’t know if you’re competitive enough to play this sport.”
Jerome is plenty competitive, as is Guy. They’ve proven that time and again in their three years as teammates, and they’re ready to help write a new NCAA tournament story for UVA.
“I don’t know I’ve ever played with anybody like them,” freshman guard Kihei Clark said, “having a guy like Kyle coming off screens shooting and Ty just running the team, with him being one of the best point guards in the country. So it’s been great.”
Soderberg said: “What a privilege it’s been to be around those two guys.”