The World Wasn’t Made for Jay Huff

Jay Huff (redshirt junior) was the second big man to commit to the vaunted 2016 recruiting class, and shortly thereafter, the first one decommitted.  It was rumored that Sasha Kielleya-Jones didn’t like the nasty streak with which Huff played.  When the class arrived for their first year, Huff joined De’Andre Hunter on the bench for a redshirt season.  Cavalier Nation has been waiting anxiously for him to feature ever since.  We even remember the highlights from that redshirt year: practice video of him taking off at the foul line and dunking. Blocking Mamadi Diakite while flatfooted (soon to become a signature move) in the Blue-White game.  Early in his first active season, he dropped 16 points on Austin Peay in 23 minutes on 2–2 shooting from 3.  Oh, he also had 5 blocks. We all thought he had arrived.

We were wrong.  Huff would only play in 12 games that year and average just under 9 minutes/game.  Maybe the frontcourt, with Diakite, Jack Salt and Isaiah Wilkins, was just too crowded.

We waited for him last year.  He played more, he closed out the ACC slate with five straight games in which he averaged just over 16 minutes per game.  He thrilled Cavalier Nation with flat footed blocks (can you tell I love these?) against Syracuse’ 7’2” center, Paschal Chukwu, and Florida State’s even taller Christ Koumadje (7’4”).  In our first game against Virginia Tech, Kerry Blackshear got the ball in the post against Huff, spun around, and when faced with Huff’s condor-like wingspan, just crumpled to floor.  He literally fell to the ground.

And then there was the offense.  Huff shot 45% from 3. And 67% from inside the arc. In terms of scoring ability, on a per-40 minute basis, he was the second highest scorer on the team (trailing only the now-notorious Grant Kersey).  Huff scored 150 points on the year.  In only 129 possessions.  That works out to 1.16 points per possession which would put him in the 98th percentile for Division I players.  And the jams were highlight-reel worthy.  Almost a dozen times on the year, Huff would be stationed at the 3-point line, pump fake, and when his defender bit (like who is possibly going to block a 7-footer’s three point attempt, anyway?) he would explode for the dunk.  All while taking a single dribble.  There just aren’t that many 7 footers who can shoot as well as Huff, and yet have the hops and explosiveness to go from 3-point line to the rim in one bounce.

It seemed like Huff had arrived.  And then post season started, Bennett tightened his rotation as he is wont to do, and Huff’s playing time plummeted to 5.5 minutes per game, with two DNPs attached to his name.  

Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?  The more meaningful the game time, the harder it has been for Huff to earn it.  His redshirt freshman year, Huff’s only meaningful minutes came during the out-of-conference slate.  Last year he made it farther, getting real minutes in ACC play.  We’re still waiting for the complete year from Jay Huff.  He’s probably still waiting himself.

What He Brings

The Virginia Hoonicorn brings an unmatched skill set: he’s insanely long, he can shoot the long ball, and he has great offensive bounce.  Players who have realized the potential that Jay possesses must be game-planned for. The UVa offense –whether it is Bennett’s beloved “Sides” or the Continuity Ball Screen that he introduced last year – is brutally efficient.  They are pattern offenses: the team runs the pattern, and if there is no shot, the team runs it again.  And again. Teams always know what is coming, but stopping it is another matter entirely. One defining feature of both patterns is that the high screen (what some call the flare screen) is a two person screen.  The other three players are on the other side of the floor, so the high screener has an emptier side of the key. Huff was simply devastating on the roll to the rim when his side of the floor is empty. He’s tall, so he’s a good target for a high entry pass, and even if the pass is lower, Huff can simply explode like few others in the college game. The high screen also leaves Huff at the three point line, and he’s been quite the excellent shooter, albeit on a limited number of attempts last year.  Having to prepare for both Huff’s individual excellence, as well as the routine of stopping the continuous motion offense that Bennet brings, could be an impossible task.

He also brings the ability to impact the game on the defensive end with his rim protection, his rebounding and his hustle.  His defensive issues are over-blown: in conference play his defensive rebounding percentage was 20.7, and his block percentage was 10.8%.  Those are both very strong numbers.  His Defense Rating of 85.6 was lowest on the team, and on Synergy, Jay was calculated as giving up .696 PPP, putting him in the 91st percentile of D-1 players.  As flawed as these indicators are, they show that Jay is an impactful defender. The issues were consistency and stamina.

What I Would Like to See More

This is the easiest sentence to write in this entire preview: I want to see more minutes!

Huff, to some degree, is still a boy growing into a man’s body.  Last year in this space we reported that he’d grown 2 inches and added 15 pounds between his redshirt year and the start of practice last season.  Reports from practice and the Blue-White game are that Huff has added another 10–15 pounds.  The maturation process is still ongoing.

Huff also has to work on his fitness and conditioning.  Even as he was showing his skills in the ACC portion of the season, we could still see that his 4th and 5th minute on the floor were not as effective as his first three minutes.  He simply got tired and didn’t have the stamina to play the minutes we all wanted to see.

And lastly, I want to see more confidence in his shot. While Bennett has the reputation of yanking players early off a miss, Bennett has always said that he wants every player to have the green light to shoot a good shot.  Huff passed up a lot of good looks last year.  He could afford to; he had Guy and Jerome constantly circling around him, and they were dead-eye shots.  We won’t have the luxury this season.  As of right now, Huff is the best shooter we’re going to put on the floor.

What I Would Like to See Less

Another easy sentence:  I want to see fewer fouls.   

Jay fouls a lot: he averaged over 6.5 fouls per 40 minutes and that is going to keep him off the floor under the Bennett regime.  Fouls in the past have been more of an annoyance for Huff because he was never going to play anything like starter’s minutes. This year will be different, so his success this year will have a lot to do with how well he can stay out of foul trouble.  In Tony Bennett’s Packline^TM scheme, the bigs have to hedge on the court and still have the nimbleness and agility to get back on their man.  We all remember how great a screener Jack Salt was, but his premier skill was actually executing this hedge and getting back.  Diakite, in his third year, finally learned how to resist the temptation of the ill-advised reach-in, and he cut down on the fouls and was actually able to play starter’s minutes.  One of Bennett’s axioms is that players can “foul out” of the first half should they pick up a third foul.  I’m not expecting that tendency of Bennett Ball to change.  Huff will be asked to hedge and not foul, and more importantly, get back to his man.  He’s struggled with this in the past.  If he can make the leap, as it were, he has a chance to get the minutes.  If he gets the minutes, he will have the opportunity to terrorize the ACC.  

Expected Role

Last year we wrote that we expected to see Huff in an expanded role.  And until the postseason, we did see more of Huff.  Bennett simply doesn’t have the option of limiting Huff’s playing time this year.  As has been pointed out many times in this preview, we are losing 44 points per game. I don’t expect to see Huff starting. I think Bennett is going to pair Braxton Key with Diakite in the starting role.  A major factor this season will be how much Diakite and Huff can play together.  While they did not play together that often last season, they were on the floor together in some of Virginia’s best stretches: late first half against Oklahoma when the Hoos took control of the second round NCAA game; second half at Syracuse when Virginia took the lead from Syracuse and ran away from them; early second half at Louisville when the Hoos closed the gap.  The two of them being able to defend without getting lost on the perimeter or committing fouls will allow Huff to bring his talent to bare.  And that’s all that Cavalier Nation really wants.

Final Analysis

I’ve related elsewhere that when I got a chance to speak with Malcolm Brogdon, before Huff, Hunter, Guy and Jerome had matriculated on Grounds, which of the 2016 would have the biggest impact on the program, Brogdon responded with Huff.  Well, the future has arrived for Jay Huff, the Virginia Hoonicorn.  

Cavalier Nation is champing at the bit to see him explode onto the national consciousness. But Huff seems a remarkably well-grounded man, and if there is future 1st-round pick who could still be sanguine about a year in which he got 5 minutes a game in the post season, it would be Jay Huff.  This Cavalier Insider article by Josh Needelman in the Daily Progress is still the best profile I’ve seen on the man:  

I’d encourage the read.