Growing Process Continues for Cavaliers

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Its record is perfect, but the University of Virginia men’s basketball team has been far from flawless in its two games this season:  wins over Campbell and Coppin State at John Paul Jones Arena.

That’s not cause for panic. Growing pains were inevitable for a program with six newcomers and an interim head coach who’s been in that role for less than four weeks.

“Big picture, I would say we’ve been resilient,” said one of those newcomers, forward Elijah Saunders, a transfer from San Diego State. “We’ve been through a lot in this past month.”

Tony Bennett’s decision to retire last month after 15 seasons as UVA’s head coach rocked the program (and the fan base), but the work continues at JPJ. The Cavaliers are looking to battle “through the blows and keep pushing on forward,” Saunders said.

Virginia, which opened with a 65-56 win over Campbell last week, hammered Coppin State 62-45 on Monday night. The Eagles (0-4) scored nine points in the final 1:35 after the Wahoos built a 26-point lead.

Ron Sanchez, who returned to Virginia in June 2023 for a second stint as associate head coach, was promoted upon Bennett’s departure, and he sees signs of progress.

“I like that today we got to play against a zone consistently,” Sanchez said, “and I like that we made some mistakes, because the only way that we can grow and journey is to fail sometimes. I know that failure is something that people don’t want to experience. None of us do. But the truth is that without it, you really can’t identify where your weaknesses are.

“So right now, I’m really thankful for some of the things that we experienced today, including some of the mistakes that we made—not only as a team, but also individually, because we also have to find out who we are and who we can trust in certain situations. And instead of me making that decision for them, we let the game kind of expose that. And we grow and we learn. We’re always gonna celebrate the things that we do well, and then we’re just gonna focus on and work on the things that we need improvement on.”

The next two weeks figure to reveal much more about these Hoos. They play Villanova on Friday and then travel to the Bahamas for a tournament in which  they’ll face Tennessee and either St. John’s or Baylor.

“In terms of Villanova, that’s the next step,” Saunders said after scoring a game-high 15 points against Coppin State. “It’s our first major conference team we’ve played, different level of physicality, different level of size. And we have a young group, so it’ll be some guys’ first time seeing that level of talent on the floor, but I’m excited. I think we’re ready for the challenge, and I think these next couple days of practice will be big for us.”

The Hoos were shorthanded against Coppin State. Junior Andrew Rohde, who started at point guard against Campbell, was a late scratch with a back injury, and sophomore Dai Dai Ames replaced him in the lineup.

“Dai Dai did a really good job today stepping into that role,” Sanchez said. “He’s got a little dynamic shift and change of direction to his game.”

A transfer from Kansas State, Ames totaled 13 points, three rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots in 29-plus minutes. He made 2 of 3 shots from 3-point range and 5 of 8 overall.

“I think that Dai Dai did a really good job of getting us started correctly, especially offensively,” Sanchez said.

Ames’ three-point play 74 seconds into the game put the Hoos up 3-2, and they led the rest of the way.  “I feel like that kind of boosted the team’s energy a little bit,” he said, “getting that and-one, because we got a stop right after that.”

Not until late in the first half, however, did the Cavaliers gain significant separation from Coppin State. UVA hit four 3-pointers in the final 4:07 of the half—the first one by Ames, the next three by junior guard Isaac McKneely—and led by 16 at the break.

McKneely, the top returning scorer from a UVA team that won 23 games in 2023-24, finished with 14 points and tied his career high with six rebounds. He also had three assists, three steals and a block.

“It’s really important for us to get iMac to shoot the ball when he’s open,” Sanchez said. “I actually think he passed up way too many shots early on in that first half. He wants to be a team player. He really does. He impacts the game in so many different ways.”

Shooting isn’t No. 11’s only skill. “IMac is one of our best defenders right now,” Sanchez said. “So we just need him to take the combination of being one of a better defenders and also playing the role of being a guy that can, if he has a window, that he has the green light to shoot the ball.”

The Eagles, who belong to the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, shot 21.1 percent from 3-point range and 28 percent overall. That wasn’t all a product of Virginia’s Pack Line defense, but “I actually think we have the potential to be a pretty good defensive team,” Sanchez said.

“I think we have enough size. I think we have some decent length. I think we have some decent quickness on the perimeter, and if we continue to journey and value the little things, I think that this team has a chance to be really good defensively. And that’s the part that’s really exciting for me.”

The Cavaliers blocked 11 shots Monday night. Jacob Cofie, a 6-foot-10 freshman, led the team with three rejections, and 6-foot-11 sophomore Blake Buchanan and Ames had two apiece.

Cofie, who came off the bench to contribute 16 points and six rebounds against Campbell, sparkled again Monday night. He finished with 11 points, 11 boards, four steals and two assists.

“The reason we recruited Jacob was because he’s pretty complete,” Sanchez said. “He can shoot, he can pass. And the one area that we knew we were gonna have to coach him up on was going to be his defense, and I think that he is doing a really good job of taking steps forward.

“Being good defensively takes a tremendous amount of effort. We work on it every day. It’s not natural to many being uncomfortable that way. Nobody gets on the SportsCenter for sliding defensively and keeping a guy in front. That doesn’t make a Top 10 play. But we all know that that’s the reason why you do have success. Jacob, honestly, has been a bright spot in a lot of different ways, last game to this game. It doesn’t matter the opponent. We’re talking about just the ability to see things, to keep a guy in front, to play unselfish, to just to have those instincts that allow you to make plays that just kind of stand out.”

Cofie is from Seattle. Saunders grew up in Phoenix, and he was familiar with Cofie’s game before committing to UVA.

“When he knew that Jacob was going to be here,” Sanchez recalled, “he actually told me, ‘I think he’s really talented, I can’t wait to spend some time with him.’ So they have kind of that West Coast connection to begin with. They go against each other in practice a lot. And I think that’s something that’s definitely helping Jacob, but I think it’s also helping Elijah to go up against somebody who is that quick, that strong.”

Saunders said he loves “playing with Jacob, [who’s] very versatile, great defender. That’s the first thing I noticed about him when we played [one-on-one] over the summer. He has great length, and he just has a feel. Whenever he checks into the game, he gets a block, gets a dunk … I love being out there with Jacob.”

Coppin State played a match-up zone for most of the game, and that posed a challenge for Virginia, which had faced mostly man-to-man defenses in its two preseason scrimmages and against Campbell.

The Cavaliers struggled at first to break down the zone, but “I do believe we got better as the game went on and we threw some high-low passes, things that we wanted to see,” Sanchez said.

Rohde, who tested his back during warm-ups, would have helped at that end of the court, Sanchez said, “because he’s one guy that does calm the group and organizes us. You can see the difference when the [younger] guys are out there. Rohde’s a little older, he’s been around the block, so he settles the group a little bit. And you can see some of that was lacking today. But as a whole, I do think that they got better [against the zone]. They understood it. We’ll watch it. This is fantastic for us right now: to watch it, to learn, to grow, and to get better for the next time we see something like that.”

UP NEXT: At 5 p.m. Friday, UVA (2-0) meets Villanova (2-1) in the Hall of Fame Series at CFG Bank Arena in Baltimore. The game will air on TNT.

The Cavaliers are 5-3 all-time against the Wildcats. These programs haven’t met since Jan. 29, 2017, when Villanova won 61-59 on a last-second tip-in by Donte DiVincenzo at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia.

“It was an unbelievable basketball game,” then-Villanova head coach Jay Wright said afterward. “We have so much respect for their team and their program … We just knew that we would be tested, and we knew we were going to come out of this game learning a lot. We got a little lucky at the end.”

Villanova, which is in its third season under Wright’s successor, Kyle Neptune, plays at Saint Joseph’s in a Big 5 game on Tuesday night in Philadelphia.

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