Some good, but mostly bad as Navy topples Virginia in opener

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Navy 66, No. 25 Virginia 58

College basketball was back Tuesday night. Virginia basketball was back. John Paul Jones Arena was packed with fans for the first time since March 2020. But a game actually needed to be played, and then reality sunk in at the final buzzer.

Some of what we feared coming true absolutely did come true in No. 25 Virginia’s season-opening loss to Navy.

SEASON PREVIEW: Check it out here.

The Cavaliers (0-1) fell behind the Midshipmen (1-0) early and pretty much stayed behind. Virginia did score a perfectly good 35 points in the first half, but it was down 7 at the break anyway because of some incredibly hot shooting from Navy.


Jayden Gardner tries to get around a Navy player on Tuesday. The East Carolina transfer recorded 18 points and 10 rebounds in his debut for the Cavaliers.

Virginia scratched and clawed to get back into the game during a much more defensive-oriented second half, and with 8:53 left, the ‘Hoos and Middies were tied at 55. So that was when most of us probably expected UVa to take over and win down the stretch. We’ve seen it many times over the Tony Bennett era — an ugly victory where the team grinds its opponent down late.

But it was not to be this time, as the Wahoos failed to score a single point the rest of the way, not even a free throw, until Armaan Franklin made a meaningless 3-pointer with 15 seconds left. The dreaded scoring drought hit at the worst possible time, and it came at about the same time Navy switched to a zone defense.

One of the problems offensively was 3-point shooting. That’s pretty predictable when you lose four shooters as good as Trey Murphy III, Sam Hauser, Jay Huff, and Tomas Woldetensae. Virginia went just 4 for 16 from beyond the arc. Kihei Clark went 2 for 7, Franklin went 1 for 7 (and that one was worthless, as I mentioned), and Kody Stattmann went 1 for 1. Reece Beekman was the only other player to shoot a 3. He went 0 for 1.

Going into the season, Franklin, a transfer from Indiana, was looked at as somebody who could step in and fill some of that shooting void. I was wondering if people were focusing a bit too much on his 42.4% 3-point mark of a season ago and not enough on his 26.6% mark of two seasons ago. Regression to the mean for him was a concern for me, and though it is one game, I think we can elevate the status of this worry.

Franklin’s case may remind me a bit of Justin Anderson, who made nearly 50% of his 3-pointers out of the gate during the 2014-15 season. Eventually, he cooled off and settled around the 45% mark. He capitalized on that hot streak, though, getting drafted in the first round of the NBA draft. He hasn’t been able to hit more than 33% of his 3s as a pro, and he shot about 30% his other two seasons at Virginia.

Overall, Virginia shot 41.2% from the field, and it made 12 of 17 at the line.

Though we may have anticipated Virginia struggling from deep, I doubt anyone seriously thought the defense would struggle as much as it did. We were hoping for a return to form for the defense after a bit of a step back in 2020-21. But Navy shot really well from beyond the arc, sinking 11 of its 21 attempts. John Carter Jr. went 5 for 8 on his way to a game-high 19 points, and Sean Yoder went 3 for 3 and recorded 15 points. Daniel Deaver went 1 for 2, and P.J. Roach Jr. and Carlos Silva each went 1 for 1.

Navy shot 45.3% from the field overall and converted 7 of 10 from the charity stripe.

Perhaps a slow start on defense is to be expected when working in two transfers, and it’s not like Kadin Shedrick has a lot of on-court game experience.

Another disappointment came on the glass. Despite strong numbers from Jayden Gardner and Shedrick, Virginia lost the rebounding battle, 35-30. Navy’s starters all rebounded really well, with each one collecting between four and seven rebounds.

Gardner pretty much did what we expected. The East Carolina transfer led the Cavaliers in points and rebounds with 18 and 10, collecting most of his points right around the rim, but he did make at least one jumper from farther out that I can remember. I did think, however, that he was bothered at times by taller players. He also had five turnovers, which is unacceptable. Virginia had 14 turnovers — not good — but Navy had 17. Indeed, one thing Virginia did do well on D was get steals, something we expected coming in. Beekman had six, Franklin had three, and Kadin Shedrick had three.

The only other player to score in double figures was Clark, who totaled 12 points and two assists with two turnovers.

In addition to his steals, Beekman had 8 points, six assists, five rebounds, and a block, a nice all-around game for sure, but man would it be nice if he could make some 3s. Beekman also missed both of his free throws with 2:51 remaining and Virginia down 59-55. He had one turnover.

Shedrick was pretty active with 7 points, seven boards, and a block, but he got into foul trouble in both halves and only played 22 minutes.

Franklin also had 7 points on a dismal 2-for-11 shooting. He didn’t have any turnovers.

Francisco Caffaro had 3 points and four boards (but also two turnovers) off the bench in place of Shedrick, and like I mentioned earlier, Stattmann did have one 3, and he also collected one rebound. He had one turnover.

Taine Murray entered the game for two minutes midway through the first half, but picked up a foul and turned the ball over and went back to the bench. Carson McCorkle came in for a minute at the end of the first half. Igor Milicic Jr. did not play.

After the game on social media (I don’t recommend doing that but hey, kind of part of this job), I saw two side-by-side differing viewpoints in two different tweets. One basically said this may not end up being a bad loss. Navy was 15-3 last year and won the Patriot League regular-season title. The Midshipmen brought back an experienced team. The other said this loss was worse than the one to San Francisco on a neutral floor in the second game of last season, noting Navy was without two of its expected starters.
The truth probably lies somewhere in the middle. It usually does. Remember what Bennett says: You’re never as bad as your worst performance or as good as your best. This season will be a journey. There’s no doubt the makeup of this team is a bit different. It’s going to take time, but this team will be competitive in the ACC. I really believe that. The last time UVa lost its season-opener was 2012-13 at George Mason. But that season ended up including a victory over Duke and a near-NCAA tournament berth.

Maybe we were a tad too optimistic on this team’s prospects. I picked Virginia second in the Hoos Place ACC preseason poll, and as a group, we tabbed the Cavaliers third. Perhaps this will be a team that needs to battle to just be around the Big Dance bubble. We don’t have enough data to know yet. The season has gotten off to a rocky start, but there are so many games left. Maybe Navy is set to have an all-time season, and we will indeed look back on this loss as no big deal.

Radford comes to Charlottesville on Friday, and it will be another opportunity to get to know this team. On Tuesday, some things that happened were expected, and some things were unexpected. That’s how it always goes in Game 1 each season. It wasn’t good enough, but there’s no reason to panic yet.

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