Manhattan at Virginia Basketball Preview

By Josh Burton

Coming off two disappointing performances in the Bahamas, the University of Virginia Men’s Basketball team will be back in the friendly confines of John Paul Jones Arena where they’ll host Manhattan Tuesday night. This one is scheduled for a 7 pm tip and will air on ACC Network. 

About Manhattan

The Manhattan Jaspers of the MAAC are led by head coach John Gallagher, in his second season. Gallagher has a career 179-232 record, with the Jaspers starting this year at 3-2. In their last game (an 80-79 victory over Army) they started:

G - #2 Jaden Winston (6’ Sophomore, averages 10 points per game)

G - #1 Shaquil Bender (6’2” Senior, averages 14.8 points per game)

G - #10 Masiah Gilyard (6’3” Junior, averages 8.4 points and 5.2 rebounds per game)

G - #14 Wesley Robinson (6’7” Senior, averages 6.6 points and 5.4 rebounds per game)

F - #9 Will Sydnor (6’8” Freshman, averages 15.4 points and 6.6 rebounds per game)

Manhattan is an undersized team, with no current rotation player over 6’8”. They rank within the bottom fifty in most metrics and truthfully shouldn’t be seen as much of a threat to keep it close. This one should be more about the Wahoos looking to correct some current issues that really showed up once they faced higher-end competition this past week.

Lineup Change?

This early season has surely been disappointing for second-year Duke transfer TJ Power. While he has been a fixture in the starting lineup, his shooting numbers have been bad while he hasn’t seemed to quite figure out his role on either end of the court. That said, he’s still a player with an extremely high ceiling who is in an early stage of his college career.  

I think the biggest issue is he’s playing out of position, as he’s being asked to match up with 3’s (generally guards in college) as opposed to going up against 4’s (forward) where he can use his versatility to gain an advantage. I also think expectations for him are higher than they should be for this season.  The lineups so far have seemed to be “get the best players onto the court” as opposed to trying to fit the player into the role best suited for them.

I’m hoping to see this change with Power moving into a key role off the bench, where he can come in at his natural position and play against some backups for opponents so that he can get more comfortable on the court. In his place I would choose to insert Andrew Rohde, who has seemingly found his shot this season and has looked much improved so far.

The big concern with playing Rohde anywhere besides point guard was the idea that it would create spacing issues if both he and sophomore guard Dai Dai Ames were on the court together. While still early in the season, the two have silenced those doubts so far.  Both have knocked down over 40% of their three-point attempts.  With spacing concerns alleviated, I prefer Rohde’s playmaking ability over the other options for the last starting spot and am hoping to see him reinserted into the lineup after proving himself off the bench the last two weeks.

Cleaning Up

There have been two glaring issues that have plagued the team,  turnovers and rebounding. The Hoos so far rank near the bottom in both turnover percentage and offensive rebounding, numbers that will certainly have to change for them to find success as the season goes on.

I’m not quite as concerned with the turnovers, as those numbers are probably a little inflated from their two difficult matchups last week. Both Tennessee and St. John's play aggressive defensive styles and are known for turning opponents over.  That said, any team could choose to up the pressure and they’ll have to be ready for it and value possessions better.  

Rebounding is the bigger concern.  They gave up entirely too many second chance points last week by simply not playing fundamental basketball and boxing out. An undersized Jaspers opponent should be good for working the fundamentals, as they’ll have to try and be quick to be able to grab boards, forcing the Hoos to have to put a body on them and box out. How the Hoos look in getting rebounding position will be something to monitor over the next couple games against lower competition.

Next

Following Tuesday night's game, the Hoos will have one more tune up before heading to Florida next week to take on the Gators. They'll host Holy Cross for a Black Friday afternoon matchup, set to tip at 4 pm. Locker Room Access will have full coverage as always. 

(Featured Image Credit: Getty)