UVA’s work in progress is working pretty good right now

By Jerry Ratcliffe

Wrote a column about this time last week, noting that in the estimation of some fans, the sky was falling. Caught some grief about it from some of the doomsayers.

Then, Virginia was mired in a losing streak, couldn’t win on the road, couldn’t defend to Tony Bennett’s liking, couldn’t throw a beach ball in the ocean if the Cavaliers were standing on the beach.

What a difference a week makes.

What a difference having two players step up and give UVA what it needed: experience, physicality, mental toughness. Those are just some of the intangibles that Jordan Minor and Dante Harris brought to the team and fueled back-to-back wins, beating a dangerous Virginia Tech team within the friendly confines of “The Jack,” while maintaining the nation’s longest home winning streak (20 games), then polishing off Georgia Tech on the road.

All of a sudden, Virginia is tied for sixth place in the league, a half-game out of fifth (behind Duke) and a full game out of a tie for second with Wake, FSU and NC State, the latter of which is coming to town on Wednesday evening.

Wahoo Nation impatiently waited for the development of Minor. Discarded by many, Minor never gave up on himself. Neither did Bennett.

How many times over the years have we heard Bennett tell his players to keep working, be ready, you never know when it’s your turn? Minor kept that to heart, busting his butt in practice, and when he got a chance to play some mop-up duty in a lopsided loss at NC State a couple weeks ago, he played with a passion that Bennett couldn’t ignore.

The mop-up time led to three-consecutive starts, and now Minor has become an integral part of this basketball team. It took him longer to become fully ingrained into Bennett’s “Pack-Line” because he had played nothing but zone defense for four years at Merrimack. These things take time and patience.

One of the things missing from Virginia’s mover-blocker offense all season long has been a physical, effective screener, so that shooters could break free for an open look or even to drive past a defender to the basket. Minor is a big dude and he packs a punch, just like Jack Salt and Francisco Caffaro once did.

I have a sportswriting friend who was always complaining about why Salt got so much playing time. “He can’t score,” the guy said. He never understood what a vital role Salt played in that offense because he brought physicality, brick-wall screens to the offense. That was his role and he embraced it, and it served him and Virginia well.

Ask Georgia Tech coach Damon Stoudamire about Minor. Ask Virginia Tech’s Mike Young.

Stoudamire will tell you that college basketball is much more physical than the NBA, because at the next level, the refs are protecting the players.

One of the things Stoudamire talked about after Virginia beat his Georgia Tech team was how physical the Cavaliers were, particularly Minor and Ryan Dunn, down in the paint. Dunn clearly needed some help down there, and Minor is that running mate.

Jake Groves isn’t made for the role. He’s made to shoot — and if he does that a little bit better, he’ll be helping take some pressure off Isaac McNeely.

“The way Virginia screens, it was difficult for us,” Stoudamire said. “They’re going to make you work. They wore us out with their screening and their ability to score late in the shot clock. Collectively, I didn’t think we were tough enough.”

That’s what some critics were saying a couple weeks ago about Virginia.

Now that Minor has taken over that role with Dunn, that probably won’t be an issue in the future.

Not only is Minor physical, but so is Harris. Yeah, I know, Harris isn’t that big of a dude. But he is aggressive, and he has experience starting in the physical Big East. He’s mentally tough and just like Minor, both of those guys have been in the middle of the frey before. Experience means something in college hoops, and they both bring that to the table.

Just like Virginia was missing physicality and screen-setting in the middle, the Cavaliers were also missing some of that in the backcourt. Reese Beekman couldn’t do it all, but was almost trying to do too much.

With Harris back in the lineup, it takes some pressure off Beekman. Harris can bring the ball up the floor, set the offense, drive to the basket, dish the ball to the open man in scoring position. On defense, you’ve got two of the best on-ball defenders in the ACC trying to take the opponents’ guards out of their game.

“The difference between us beating Clemson and us losing to Virginia was that Virginia’s guards controlled the game,” Stoudamire said. “They got exactly what they wanted.”

We’ll see if that continues against the Wolfpack on Wednesday, then the Cavaliers can take another step forward with a game at Louisville over the weekend. Sweep the week and UVA is on a four-game winning streak, fighting for the upper foursome of the ACC.

And Henny Penny won’t be quite so noisy.

Bennett sums it up with Bible scripture as he often does: “Don’t grow weary in doing good, for in due time, you’ll reap a harvest.”

When has Tony been wrong?