Don’t let the shooting stats fool you, Dallin Hall remains crucial to UVA basketball’s success

Things are going well for Ryan Odom and the Virginia Cavaliers, to say the least. The ’Hoos are firmly back in the top-25 once again at 16-2 overall and 5-1 in the ACC, with a gigantic opportunity this Saturday against a struggling North Carolina team at home inside JPJ.

A huge part of this team’s success, despite what anyone who only looks at the scoring column might tell you, is the leadership and all-around play of Dallin Hall.

The easy-to-knock, low-hanging fruit of his game as of late has been his shooting, rather the lack thereof throughout stretches this year, especially in UVA’s last three games. In the last three wins over Stanford, Louisville, and SMU, Hall’s combined for an ugly 3-of-16 from the floor, with all but three of those attempts coming from beyond the arc.

19% shooting is bad; there’s no defending it in a vacuum. But pointing at that percentage alone to poke a giant hole in Hall’s game, as UVA’s narrow leader in minutes played per game (27.5), would be disingenuous for what he does for this team, and a misunderstanding of why Odom and his staff brought him to Charlottesville in the first place.

Hall does a handful of things well that you’ll never see in the box score or on a graphic flashed across on TV. He boxes out guards gunning for boards to open space for others to get their hands on rebounds, plays sound team defense, and does the things that make coaches pump their fist in a film session like funneling ballhandlers into the human skyscrapers of Johann Grunloh and Ugonna Onyenso for tough looks around the basket, or simply making the easy, productive passes in halfcourt offense for second or third assists.

You’ll never hear anyone talking about a hockey assist in a basketball game, but those are the plays that shine like flashing green lights to a coaching staff making playing time decisions.

Besides, was the expectation when UVA secured his commitment in the summer that he would be averaging 13 points a night? Safe to say, probably not. In his first three years at BYU, he averaged 7.3, 9.0, and 6.8 points per game, respectively. Today, his scoring average sits at 5.8. And while there was serious talent on a few of those Cougar teams, the jury is still out on whether or not this UVA group is the best Hall’s been a part of — I lean more toward that being the case.

Hall starts and plays heavily because of his ability to distribute, defend intelligently, and be in the right spots. Guys like Thijs De Ridder, Malik Thomas, Chance Mallory, and Sam Lewis have shown they’re able to carry the scoring load. That’s part of why this team is up to No. 14 in the AP Poll. Odom and co. constructed this roster with a clear vision in mind for each guy’s role. Hall is out there to help run the show on both ends of the floor.

And sure, I can find clip after clip of great plays, and if you think differently, you can go find a share of bad ones. That’s as endless a game as someone still saying the SEC is the best conference in college football at this point. But overall? Hall is a net positive when he’s out there.

In fact, the analytics suggest that to be true when you look at how effective UVA’s lineup combinations are with him on the floor. Of the ACC’s top 15 rated three-player lineups measured by CBB Analytics, the ’Hoos own four of them. The only player included in each of those four? Dallin Hall.

Now, this isn’t to say UVA’s starting point guard should be free from criticism should he continue to not make shots for three or four straight games coming up, but to not acknowledge the little things, in addition to the fact he pulled down 12 rebounds against Louisville, and dished out nine assists at SMU — which now has him at a 19:4 assist to turnover ratio across the last three games — would be criminal when it comes to recognizing his overall value. He isn’t just logging 30+ minutes of cardio each night. He’s making winning plays, no matter how small some might seem.

And, like the Maryland game when he went for 20 points, I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a time in the near future when this team is starving for a scoring lift, and it comes at the hands of a few big shots from No. 30.