UVA, winners of the 2019 (and second most recent) Final Four hit the road Tuesday night to pay a visit to the Houston Cougars, participants in this past season’s 2021 Final Four. UVA’s rarely the underdog in non-conference contests, so it will be interesting to see if the new-look roster can continue to build on Friday night’s quality performance to play well against a ranked team on the road.

Game Details:

Date/Time: Tuesday, November 16th, 8pm
Location: Fertitta Center, Houston, TX
TV: ESPN

What ‘They’ Say

Depth Chart:

Starters

Key Reserves

The ABC’s of UH:

A) Much like us two years ago, a F4 run led to roster turnover. The Cougars ran through the AAC last season en route to a 2-seed in March, in which they ran through the Midwest bracket and ended up clashing with eventual national champion Baylor. Three starters from that team moved on in current NY Knicks guard Quentin Grimes, Pacers two-way guard Dejon Jarreau, and Bundesliga forward Justin Gorham. Additionally, reserve big man Brison Gresham transferred to Texas Southern in the offseason. That’s four of the top 8 players from last year’s March rotation gone, and a fifth, wing Tramon Mark, has yet to make an appearance this season due to an unspecified shoulder injury. UH coach Kelvin Samson went to the transfer well to add Kyler Edwards (Texas Tech), Taze Moore (1st team all-conference at Cal State-Bakerfield), and Josh Carlton (UConn) to round out his depth chart along with promoting some younger guys from within such as Roberts and Shead.

B) PG Michael Sasser is the unquestioned leader of this team. Grimes was the biggest name on Houston’s team last March, but Sasser was right behind him, maybe not getting quite the attention he deserved. He broke out as a sophomore, finishing second on the team in points (13.7 ppg), steals, and assists. He elevated his play in the postseason, finishing the year with back-to-back 20-point outings in the E8 and F4. He takes over full time lead guard duties this year and through two games leads the team in both points and assists, and is shooting better from 3 than in years past. He’ll be the best PG UVA faces in the non-conference portion of its season, maybe one of the best all year. Kihei and Reece will have their hands full.

C) Regardless of the turnover, it’s an old team. Houston boasts three 5th year super seniors playing out their bonus seasons in the homegrown White, four-year Big West letter-winner Moore, and former UConn starter Carlton, all of whom played basically four complete seasons already. Both Edwards and Chaney have close to 100 games played apiece as well as true fourth years. Yes coach Sampson has pieces to put together, but they’re veteran pieces that will provide an experience advantage over UVA at a number of positions. They do have youth on their bench, but of note there’s not a single freshman in their main rotation, everyone at least a full-season contributor last year.

Their season to date:

Houston is 2-0 this season. They opened the season with an 83-75 home overtime win over Hofstra before enjoying a comfortable home blowout of cross-town Rice 79-46.

Keys to getting the win:

1) Rebound, rebound, rebound. Kelvin Sampson rolled out the nation’s 2nd best Offensive Rebounding team both last year and the year before at OR%s of 39.8% and 38.7% respectively, tops in the AAC both years. Through two games, they’re on par with a rate of 38.8%, though of course that’s maybe inflated by competition. We’ve talked about their turnover on the perimeter. Yes, a lot of the past production left with Justin Gorham and Brison Gresham, but White, Chaney, and Roberts were all better than 10% OR% on the offensive glass last season in their role-player opportunities, and have continued that aggressiveness in expanded minutes so far this season. Roberts especially is averaged 5 ORs a game so far this year. Houston is more focused on using its big men to generate its second chance opportunities rather than good-rebounding guards, so most of this responsibility is going to fall on Shedrick, Caffaro, and Gardner. In the Navy game it was the Middie backcourt that did most of the damage, but of course we’ll still look to our guards to do their part here as well.

2) 80 minutes from our three bigs. Houston is a 2-big team through and through. The four-big rotation of White, Chaney, Roberts, and Carlton have played about 158 of a combined available 170 minutes at the 4 and 5 through two games (and most of the rest were garbage time against Rice). None are perimeter threats (Fabian White the only one who even really attempts 3’s, currently a career 3 of 13 from deep over 4+ seasons). I highly doubt Houston ever goes four-guard in this one (unless Tremon Mark makes a surprise reappearance, which looks doubtful), because that’s going to put a ton of pressure on our big man rotation of Caffaro, Shedrick, and Gardner to play well for 80 combined minutes. None of those forwards are less than 220lbs, so they’d abuse any guard we’d put against them (Kody included). They’re going to look to get our bigs in foul trouble, and certainly both Shedrick and Caffaro have struggled so far this season. But if we have to go beyond those three, either to a small-ball lineup or pressing Igor Milicic into his first action of the season, our ability to protect the glass and defend the paint goes out the window.

3) Don’t settle for 3’s. Through their first two games, Houston’s opponents have taken an eye-popping 60% of the shots from behind the 3-point arc. Thus far this Houston defense, with its considerable size in the paint, wants teams to be uncomfortable in the lane to the point they settle for contested long balls. Hofstra took 43 of its 74 shots from deep, and Rice took 31 of its 50 shots from behind the arc. Those teams then hit 28% and 26% on those 3’s, respectively. It’s not to discount value and importance in continuing to build on our good shooting night against Radford (9 of 19 from 3), but the key takeaway there was the limited volume. We still went inside heavily to Shedrick and Gardner where they were able to combine for 28 points, drawing a ton of fouls (24 combined FTAs between them and Papi). If UVA’s guards’ takeaway from the Radford win was “shoot more,” we’re playing into Houston’s hands. Play through the paint to get the most out of the offense, shooting included.

Predictions:

With Tremon Mark likely still out, Sasser is the only player back from UH’s 2020-21 Final Four team that averaged more than 5 ppg last season. That’s significant, because it means we’re not the only one rebuilding a roster on the fly this fall. Needing overtime to escape a Hofstra team ranked 148th in KenPom shows the same kind of struggles we saw in a loss to KenPom #178 Navy (Torvik actually has Navy as the stronger team). So maybe there’s reasons to be encouraged knowing they’re working in new faces same as we are.

With that said, they’re a highly ranked team for a reason. Sasser was first team preseason all-Conference, and has backed that up with two huge games to start the year. Kyler Edwards was a key piece of TT’s Final Four run in 2019 and their definitive best shooter last year even when stuck playing with shot-hog Mac McClung. They’ve got a deep rotation of big men who control the glass on both ends. There’s very little youth at any key position.

Let’s talk about our defensive strategy. So far this year UH has won a shootout and a blowout both over bad defenses from smaller conferences. They have yet to get into a grind. Having pulled out OT over the Pride did at least give them close game experience and the confidence that comes with winning a tight one. But it remains to be seen how comfortable this roster is in a low-scoring slugfest. I want to see UVA turn this game into a classic low-possession, low-scoring battle. A “first to 60 wins” kind of affair, maybe even “first to 55.” With Clark and Beekman spearheading the defense, we’ll have to hope Sasser and Shead are harassed into uneven games which will in turn at least put UVA in a position to win.

I do worry UVA is a body short in the frontcourt. Jayden Gardner went for 28 points, 15 rebounds, and 4 assists in a win over Houston last season while at ECU, and certainly he’s capable of having a similar impact (possession adjusted statistics, obviously) here. But what about the 5 or 10 minutes he needs to sit and catch his breath? And Shedrick and Caffaro just don’t have the experience yet to stay out of foul trouble for 40 minutes against this caliber opponent; it wouldn’t surprise me at all if one of them fouls out.

Additionally, while the minutes for Taine and Carson were encouraging against Radford, not just how they played but when they played, including critical successful moments in the first half, this game will obviously be a giant step up in competition for them. I’m worried about them handling the moment, though obviously I’ll be thrilled to be proven wrong.

The Radford game gave me hope for this season for the Hoos after the Navy loss, I saw key potential and development that points to continued growth with a winnable strategy. But going on the road to Houston is maybe too much, too soon. This won’t be as bad as Gonzaga’s reality check last winter (I certainly hope not, anyways!), but still this is the toughest game on UVA’s schedule until the meat of ACC play. For a Hoo club still in search of consistency, a hard fought loss is probably the reasonable outcome, but one that still could provide some quality teaching moments and encouraging flashes for the road ahead.

Hoos Lose – 60-52