The new rules of a faster shot clock and freedom of movement rule have given way to more points a game, when, in my opinion we are more efficient on floor defense than we were last year.
Last year we had an average for the year of 51.9 points allowed a game. If you take into consideration the number of points we gave teams when we sent in the walk ons in the last couple of minutes of blow outs we would have been down around 48.4 points a game. I remember several games they gave up 11 and 13 points in just 2 minutes to go.
We are currently ranked 8th, but if you look at the 1 thru 7 teams of Little Rock, Louisville, Texas Tech, Purdue, Valparaiso, St. Mary's (CA), and Old Dominion their average per game will change big time once they start playing conference play. Everyone of the teams ahead of us played some real stiffs and cupcake teams for OOC and I was surprised that Louisville had so many of them on their schedule. Some of the teams these other 7 leaders played already and held them to basically 30's scoring, would have had a hard time with beating a Top Division II or III or a top high school team. I'm glad Coach Bennett does put top 20 teams and mid major schools on the schedule in our OOC and not ridiculous easy wins. Some of the teams I saw playing the upper 7 teams in front of us were a joke. Grand Canyon????? Didn't even know there was a College team named University of Grand Canyon........what next season on their OOC schedule, ITT Tech?
Even though we have dropped points allowed due to rule changes, UVA this year to me is a better team than last years squad due to the depth and I like this current starting line up of Gill, Wilkins, Thompson, Brogdon and Perrantes with Tobey and Hall coming off the bench as the first to come in. I know that line up will change against the Dukes, FSU, and North Carolina, but this squad has five scores on the floor, along with guys that can play good defense, even on big match ups.
I thought Thompson and Perrantes rotating over to their man shooting had a lot to be desired last night, but they eventually tighten it up until we got that 19 point lead and there were some last series of allowing easier open threes, but the game was basically in hand at that point.