CHESTNUT HILL, Mass. – The second year of a head coach’s tenure is often a major challenge for a lot of reasons. Most of the time, the roster is young, or at least inexperienced, and that’s a big reason why it is such a challenge. Virginia in Tony Bennett’s second season fits that to a proverbial “T”.
Seven freshmen, none of them having redshirted, dot the Cavaliers’ 13-man roster, a record for the program. Two prior teams had six, back in 1989-90 and 2004-05. As if that’s not enough, all of the Cavaliers who have missed games due to injury are upperclassmen, two of them seniors. Senior Mike Scott is done for the season with a left ankle injury, but should get a redshirt to return next year. Having a veteran presence certainly wouldn’t hurt, although it mainly means the team has to grow up quickly.
Another area where the Cavaliers are lacking is size, and Scott’s season-ending injury comes into play there. They already planned to redshirt 6’9″ freshman James Johnson, and senior Will Sherrill missed five games after getting hurt at Minnesota last month. The only players 6’8″ or taller who are playing significant minutes are Sherrill, junior center Assane Sene and freshman forward Akil Mitchell. Sherrill didn’t last long against Boston College on Wednesday because of matchups, so at times the Cavaliers went with four guards.
“We don’t have a lot of bodies, so we have to go with four guards,” Bennett said.
Not having the size means the guards have to be better defenders, especially cutting down penetration. Sene knows he has to improve as well, and showed signs of it on Wednesday with a career-high 11 points, nine rebounds and five blocked shots, which ties a career high. He has a chance to come into his own as more minutes are available, as is a bigger role.
“The last two or three games, he’s done a nice job, and I’m pleased to see his progress,” Bennett said of Sene. “He’s getting some quality minutes, he’s bothering some shots. He was a factor, finishing a little better.”
Sene wasn’t the only Cavalier to show progress on Wednesday. Joe Harris had his fourth straight game in double figures, but also scored at key moments. He scored five straight to put them up by one, then later hit a game-tying three-pointer. K.T. Harrell bounced back from a two-point outing against Duke to score 13 points while going 3-4 from long range.
In fact, the Cavalier guards played well for a good amount of the game. Jontel Evans shot 3-14 from the field, but he combined with Mustapha Farrakhan to help control the game for most of the first half. That’s something they have been able to do lately, and on Wednesday they combined for six assists and three turnovers. Foul trouble didn’t help them (Farrakhan fouled out late), although they helped lead the defense on star Eagle guard Reggie Jackson, who was 4-12 from the field.
Virginia stayed right with Boston College in the second half, never letting the Eagles pull away and leading on a couple of occasions. The Eagles’ biggest lead was six, one that lasted for all of 15 seconds, but Virginia only led by one on two occasions and didn’t hold either lead for very long.
“We need wiggle room,” said Bennett. “We’re walking a pretty narrow beam, so our footing has to be pretty sure.”
Youth might have been a factor in the Eagles making more plays late, but that might not have been all. Boston College is now 5-2 in games decided by five points or less, while Virginia was in just their third such game of the season.
“We’ve just got to finish the whole game,” said Farrakhan. “We’re getting better, but we have to finish games.”
Bennett said he was encouraged by what he saw and that there were positives to take from this game. Farrakhan expressed hope that a turnaround won’t be far away, knowing what last year’s team did early on. The difficult thing is that improvement is taking place, but some games, like Wednesday night’s, don’t have an end result that shows it.
“The way that we played tonight, if we keep doing it, I think we’re going to have a lot of improvement this year,” said Sene. “We’ve just got to keep doing it.”
The young team will certainly try. They need to grow up quickly to translate the improvement into wins, and as Bennett noted, they will need to try some different lineups. If Sene keeps improving, that goes a long way towards mitigating the lack of size, and Evans has been making strides at the point. More wins may be hard to come by, but the ACC isn’t as imposing as it often is this season, so they might not be far away. It’s all part of the challenge of a coach’s second year, and a win or two for the effort can always do a lot for a young team’s confidence.
