Virginia returns to JPJ one last time this year, hosting the NIT quarterfinals against A-10 stalwart St. Bonaventure. With a spot in MSG on the line, the Hoos look to reach their first NIT semi-finals since 1992 when we won it all. St. Bonaventure is shooting better than it has all season in the NIT. Can the Hoos slow down their well-balanced small-ball attack?

Game Details:

Date/Time: Tuesday, March 22nd, 7:00 PM
Location: John Paul Jones Arena, Charlottesville, VA
TV: ESPN

What ‘They’ Say

Depth Chart:

Starters

Key Reserves

The ABC’s of SBU:

A) This is even less deep of a team than we are. We moan sometimes about UVA’s lack of great depth, though certainly Kody Stattmann proved himself at North Texas. The Hoos have the 10th-lowest bench usage in the country, just 19.8% of our minutes coming from our reserves. Yet that’s nothing compared to St. Bonaventure, who ranks dead last by a large margin at just 11% of their minutes being used by the bench. That means their starters, on average, leave just about 22 mpg combined for their reserves. It’s been even worse in the NIT, as Adams and Coulibaly (who you may remember from two years at Pitt) have played only 19 minutes combined through two NIT games. Four of the Bonnie’s five starters (all except Osunniyi) played the entire game in their Sunday night win over Oklahoma. Of course, Beekman and Clark played a combined 89 of 90 available minutes in our OT game at North Texas as well; fatigue may be something to watch.

B) Their 3-point shooting killed them in the regular season, but they’ve figured it out in the NIT. Much like we saw two games ago with Mississippi State, this is another team that spent the season trying to mask some sub-par 3-point shooting. It was easy to overlook as much of the rest of their offense hummed so efficiently, getting out in transition, finishing in the lane, taking great care of the ball. But as a team they’re shooting on 33% collectively from 3 this year, a middling 206th nationally. It was even worse in regular season A-10 play, dropping to 31.2% which was 12th in their 14-team league. Again like MSU, and also like us, they built their offense to rely as lightly on the 3-ball as necessary, taking only about 30% of their shots from deep, a rate the 3rd lowest in their league. And then they got to the NIT, and out of nowhere got hot. Going back to the beginning of December through their A-10 tournament appearance, the Bonnies hit double-digit 3’s only once in 23 games. But against Colorado and Oklahoma (on road rims, no less), the Bonnies went 10-of-20 and 10-of-19 from 3 in the respective contests, providing a crucial lift in tight games. Most critically it wasn’t just one player getting hot, but good performances from all four starting guards. Can they keep that hot streak up at JPJ?

C) It’s an even smaller lineup than North Texas. I talked a lot in the UNT preview about my worries that the Mean Green would go small on us to beat us. But the unavailability of guard Rubin Jones nixxed that idea, and their bigs Ousmane, Bell, and Scott played 89 of 90 minutes. Even more than that, Bell rarely was able to effectively attack Gardner or Stattmann with a face-up game, an advantage I figured they’d exploit more. But St. Bonaventure is a true 4-guard team, with A-10 All-Conference 1st Teamer Jalen Adaway their de facto 4-man at just 6’5″ 215 lb, and playing a very effective 3-level game that includes 39% 3-point shooting on over 100 3PAs this season. Osunniyi, an All-Conference 2nd teamer and league DPOY, is the only true big on their roster, with Coulibaly at 10mpg his backup 5. We’ll see if Caffaro and Shedrick can have a bounceback game after getting outplayed by UNT’s Ousmane, but Gardner’s ability to play defense against one of St. Bonaventure’s guards (all four are dangerous, there’s no one you can hide him on) and then exploit that size advantage on the other end will be key. Otherwise we may be counting on another big night from Kody.

Their season to date:

St. Bonaventure is 22-9 on the season, and went 12-5 in the Atlantic-10. In the non-conference, they beat BYU, Clemson, and Marquette to win the Charleston Classic, but did drop games to Northern Iowa, UConn, and Virginia Tech. They got out to a middling 4-4 start in A-10 play, with three of those losses being respectably to Richmond, Davidson, and Dayton. But the Bonnies won 8 of their final 9 regular season games (the lone loss at VCU) to salvage their season, finishing 4th in the league, though a one point loss to St Louis in their opening A-10 Conference Tournament game doomed any NCAAT hopes. They won their first two NIT games against Colorado and Oklahoma, by 8 and 2 points respectively, both on the road.

Keys to getting the win:

1) Take care of the ball. The Bonnies deploy their small lineup defensively with a focus on a swarming, collapsing man-to-man, mostly in the half-court. They finished the regular season with the 2nd best defensive TO rate in the A-10, and were just as adept at forcing opponents into dead-ball turnovers as they were getting into passing lanes and crowding the paint to generate live steals they could run off of. The Bonnies have forced no fewer than 9 TOs in each of the last 17 games, including a high of 20 TOs forced at VCU a couple weeks ago. This isn’t just about our guards, as the Bonnies’ will double down on big men on the post as well, meaning Gardner and other bigs need to be secure as they receive inlet passes and attack the rim. The Hoos offense has been good but not elite at ball security, struggling in the ACCT and having some trouble against Miss State before taking better care of it at North Texas (only 5 TOs committed as a team Sunday). We’re looking for another clean game here.

2) Papi and Kadin bounce back against Osunniyi. There’s an interesting correlation between off or unavailable nights for the Bonnies’ center and some of their recent losses. He was held to 6 points on only 2 shots and 4 TOs in their A-10 Tourney loss to St Louis. He was unavailable in their 23-point loss at VCU. Before that he went for only 6 points as they struggled to survive an average St Joe’s by only 2 points. With all that said, he’s usually fantastic, and has gone for a double-double in both of the Bonnies’ NIT wins so far. UVA will need Papi and Shedrick to look a lot different than they did on Sunday night, where both fouled out while having little luck containing UNT’s Ousmane (16 points on 10 shots). The Hoo centers before that had trouble with Miss State’s Tolu Smith (16 points on just 9 shots, 11 rebounds). They haven’t really played good defensive games since the ACCT win over Louisville, though before that Sydney Curry dominated the paint at the end of the regular season. Maybe I’m asking too much, it’s clear Shedrick is just wearing down. Maybe we just go small too and ask Gardner to be the one to body up the Bonnies’ big man. But if we can get one good defensive night out of the 5-spot, keeping Osunniyi somewhat in check, the Hoos have a much better chance of reaching MSG.

3) No long scoring droughts. UVA won at UNT in spite of two extended cold spells to bookend regulation play. The Hoos didn’t get their first bucket until more than 6 minutes into the game, missing six shots, committing two turnovers, and having a shot blocked in that span. On the back end of the 2nd half, Armaan Franklin made a 3 with 5:42 to go to give UVA a 55-49 edge and the Hoos wouldn’t score the rest of the way, missing six shots in that stretch and committing two more turnovers (one an offensive foul, the other a shot clock violation). Now, UNT is a great defensive team, but those stretches were too much. UVA needs to stay consistent through 40 minutes in this one.

Summary:

This should be a bit “prettier” a game than what we saw Sunday. UNT was every bit UVA’s equal at enthusiastically using all 30 seconds of the shot clock, but St. Bonaventure will push the tempo a little. They’ll play offense a little more open, and little looser, and won’t play defense quite as tightly. That means we should see a game that’s a little more free flowing, though UVA will still look to impose its pace to a good degree.

This is a veteran St. Bonaventure team. All five starters are fourth year seniors, three of whom (Lofton, Welch, and Osunniyi) have been at St. Bonaventure their entire careers, and all were on last year’s NCAAT 9-seed club. Missing the Dance this year was a big disappointment for the Bonnies, and they look committed to making it to MSG as a consolation. They have the benefit of a very balanced offensive attack, where any one of their five starters is capable of being the star on any given night.

Once again that 4-spot is going to be critical. Can Gardner play downhill against undersized defenders or will he continue to settle for midrange jumpers? Will he struggle defending the most challenging small-ball assignment he’s arguably seen all season? Will Tony just relent and pull the 5’s in favor of getting Shedrick (or Malachi) out their for a fourth perimeter defender?

One thing to note about this game is the very tight turnaround. Both of these teams are going from Sunday night to Tuesday night; the Bonnies finished their game in Oklahoma almost two hours after we finished our game in Texas. At least we’re back on our home floor. Given the intensity of both games and the heavy minutes logged by the starters, do we see any fatigue concerns? The Hoos were 3-2 in 1- or 2-day turnarounds this season, while the Bonnies were 3-0.

Sounds like it’ll be a good home crowd in what’ll definitively be the final home game of the season and of Kihei and Kody’s careers. Think of it as a Senior Night do-over. Let’s see if it can end a little better than the last one.