Texas A&M vs Virginia Basketball Preview

By Josh Burton

After a tough week in which the University of Virginia Men’s Basketball team paired a 65-41 loss to Wisconsin with a 56-54 victory over West Virginia in the 2023 Fort Myers Tip-Off tournament, the Hoos now turn their attention to maybe the most anticipated matchup of the out of conference portion of the schedule. The Hoos will play host to Texas A&M Wednesday night (11/29) at 7:15 pm EST. The contest will air on ESPN2 as part of the inaugural ACC/SEC challenge. Let's take a look at Texas A&M.

About Texas A&M 

The Texas A&M Aggies are led by Buzz Williams, where he has been the head coach since the 2019-2020 season. This name should sound familiar to Wahoo fans, as he was the head coach at Virginia Tech for five seasons prior to taking the A&M job. Buzz has accumulated a 335-203 record, going 82-48 at A&M. This season, A&M is 6-1 having suffered a loss to FAU at the ESPN Events Invitational this past week. 

The Aggies are led by SEC Preseason Player of the Year 6’0" junior guard Wade Taylor IV (20 points, 4.4 assists, 2.4 steals per game). Joining him in the backcourt is 6’3” Covid year Senior Tyrece Radford (13 points, 4.8 rebounds, 2.2 assists per game) and 6’6” senior Hayden Hefner (8.8 points per game hitting 41% from 3).

In the frontcourt, the Aggies rely on 6’8” senior Henry Coleman III (14.2 points, 8.3 rebounds per game while hitting over 72% from the field) and 6’11” senior Wildens Leveque (2.3 points, 3.6 rebounds per game) to round out the starting lineup. From the bench, three players have averaged double digit minutes this season, led by 24 minutes per game from 6’7” senior forward Andersson Garcia (3.6 points, 7.5 rebounds per game).

Texas A&M had a bit of bad injury luck in their ESPN Events Invitational tournament, where both Tyrece Radford and Henry Coleman III were injured in the first half of their Friday matchup with FAU. In their places, they started 6’6” junior guard Jace Carter and 6’7” sophomore forward Solomon Washington, who scored 18 to lead A&M to a third place game victory over Iowa State Sunday night.

Best on Best

Part of the intrigue of this matchup is how the two teams match up with each other, particularly how the Hoos match up to defend the Aggies. Reigning ACC Defensive Player of the Year Reece Beekman will be tasked with taking the assignment of Wade Taylor early and often. Averaging 20 per game and having erupted for 35 against FAU Friday, Reece and the rest of the Hoos will certainly have their hands full guarding him.

From there, Isaac Mckneely and Andrew Rohde match up very well size-wise with Radford and Hefner, respectively. If Radford plays and is able to get into a groove, don’t be surprised to see Coach Bennett play Dante Harris alongside Reece as he is a similar size to Taylor, allowing Reece to slide down and guard the bigger Radford. If Carter starts again in Radford's absence, still expect to see Rohde matched up here. Hefner is their best outside shooter, so it will be imperative that Isaac runs him off the three-point line. 

Ryan Dunn will be tasked with guarding Henry Coleman if he plays, while Blake Buchanan will start off on Wildens Leveque. Should Coleman have to miss, expect Dunn to match up on his projected replacement, Solomon Washington. 

Although he starts, Leveque only plays about 10 minutes per game as they sub to a smaller lineup where both substitute forwards are listed as 6’7”. This will take a lot of the stress off of having to depend on Buchanan to match size and physicality, as the Hoos should see more opening to use Jake Groves, Leon Bond III and Jordan Minor along with more guard oriented lineups. 

New Hoos Lineup?

Also worth watching in this one, Virginia experimented a little with lineups in Fort Myers. Particularly in the West Virginia game by moving Leon Bond III out to the 3-spot for multiple possessions in both halves of the win. Until this week Bond had exclusively played his minutes at power forward which had been limiting the amount of time both he and Dunn could be on the court together. Bond did a great job showing he could come off of screens and score, getting 8 points in the contest while also answering maybe the more important question of could he make plays with the ball in his hands, collecting two assists. 

A&M plays a very aggressive defense that involves a lot of trapping coming off screens so I would imagine the Hoos stick with Rohde’s sound handling in the lineup to start this one. However, Bond being able to play the three for stretches gives the Hoos another potential scorer in the lineup while it also providing more length and athleticism defensively. Hopefully this won’t be a one time ordeal and we will continue to see his game evolve and fit this newfound role.

While Texas A&M starts with a true big in Leveque, they run a ton of undersized lineups. This may be a good matchup to use the newfound combination of Bond and Dunn in the frontcourt to go with three guards. Bennett went to the Bond/Dunn combo to close out the win over West Virginia.  They've proven to be high energy & effort players, so they could really shine in a matchup where they aren’t outsized.   A&M is the #1 rated offensive rebounding team per Torvik, so Leon and Ryan will be required to bring the intensity when battling for rebounds. The Aggies are a top offensive efficiency team, although not a particularly great three-point shooting team. UVA's packline will have to be playing to its potential to shut them down.

On the Horizon

There is no rest for the weary following this contest, as the Hoos will be back in action at JPJ on Saturday (12/2) to take on Syracuse in the opening game of ACC play. A very important week is in line for the Cavaliers, so be sure to check in and follow along on Locker Room Access!

(Featured Image Credit: Getty)