Virginia Basketball: Kyle Guy’s shooting key to winning title game

Kyle Guy likely won’t have a ton of open looks against the stingy Texas Tech defense, but Virginia Basketball will need his production to cut down the nets.

Kyle Guy was the hero of the Auburn game, but on the whole, he’s had an up-and-down tournament. The 43% three-point shooter on the season has shot only 10-44 (23%) in the postseason.

(All statistics used in this article were found via KenPom and are up to date through the games completed on Apr 7.).

The junior is fully capable of erupting from three, and it looks like Virginia’s tournament opponents have made a concerted effort to “take Guy away.” Auburn, in particular, limited Guy to only 6 three-point attempts (2-6) and 11 shot attempts overall (5-11). These attempts numbers were only slightly below Guy’s season averages, but I think they will need to be higher against Texas Tech.

For a lot of the Auburn game, it looked like Ty Jerome was the only Cavalier capable of doing anything on offense. De’Andre Hunter is obviously super talented, but I fear Texas Tech’s interior defense, particularly Tariq Owens, will make things very challenging for him. And as solid as they have been at times, none of Jack Salt, Mamadi Diakite, Braxton Key, or Kihei Clark can really be relied on to produce much offense against a defense like Texas Tech’s. This is why Virginia NEEDS Guy to force the issue a bit.

The Red Raiders boast the 9th best defensive three-point percentage in the country, so I won’t be expecting Guy to get the quality of looks he’d like. He’s going to have to be wiling to take a shot like fellow sharp shooter Matt McQuaid did below, even if it’s deeper than he’s used to.

(Credit to NCAA March Madness for all Gifs)

And even when there isn’t a ton of space, Virginia needs him to get some shots up. Below, he only shoots this because of the desperate situation the Cavaliers found themselves in. He needs to carry this sort of aggressive mindset throughout the game.

When the shots aren’t there, Guy needs to be willing to do some work off the dribble and make some plays as well. To his credit, he did this a bit against Auburn, picking up four assists, something he had only done in four other games this season.

If Guy waits for the open shots, I fear he’ll only get a couple all game. I can envision a scenario where Guy gets red hot and leads his team to the title. But for him to get that hot, I think it will require him taking and hitting some contested shots early on.

Regardless of how he does it, and even if he’s not super efficient, Virginia desperately needs the production.