Player Preview: Devon Hall
I’ve been a Devon Hall fan from day one. In the summer before his freshman year, I picked him to inherit the starting point guard role from Jontel Evans, starry-eyed over projections like this one from ESPN:
He’s cut from the Kendall Marshall mold. A communicator whose best attribute is his ability to see the court and make precision passes. He’s a big guard with a tricky handle. Finds ways to use his body to his advantage. His handle is good enough. The lefty is a high level communicator who isn’t afraid to speak his mind and lead.
The gig instead went to a precocious Californian import, and Devon went on to redshirt his first year in Charlottesville.
Hall’s first year of on-court eligibility was a washout. He logged almost as many DNP-CDs (11) as games of double-digit minutes (13), and half of those outings with big minutes came long after the outcome had been decided. He fell out of the rotation entirely in March, horking up two turnovers in six minutes in a loss at Louisville and then not playing at all in our four postseason games.
If you looked closely, there were some things to like in that first season. Called upon to start against JMU after London Perrantes was suspended for a violation of team rules, Hall turned in five steals in 27 minutes and did a passable job running the team. Then, a few games later, he wreaked Havoc in the Siegel Center:
That wasn’t all, though. Pressed into service to give us more ball handling against VCU’s press, Hall committed just one turnover in 15 minutes and showed an ability to keep his head up and the ball moving. For the season, he showed a modernized focus on finishing around the rim (10-22, 45.5%) or shooting threes (5–15, 33.3%) while avoiding the midrange (just three attempts) and dished 18 assists to just 12 turnovers. It wasn’t all pretty (he went just 5–11 from the line, appeared scatterbrained on D, and showed a tendency to go east-west instead of north-south with the ball), but there were more positives than negatives to glean from the small sample we were given.
Last season was better. Hall moved into the starting lineup January 17th at Florida State and kept the position for 20 of our last 21 games, solidifying a third wing spot that had flitted between Marial Shayok and Darius Thompson during the first half of the season. He logged multiple assists in his first eight starts and 14 of our last 21 games, showed an aptitude for defensive rebounding (his 14.3% DR rate was pretty close to 7'0'’ Mike Tobey’s 15.7%), hit 40% of his threes over a six game stretch in late January and early February, and showed improved understanding and effort on D, exemplified best during our win over Butler in the NCAAs when he glued himself inside the jersey of the Bulldogs’ shifty Kellen Dunham (16.2 ppg, 43% 3PT), limiting him to eight points and just two threes in seven tries. He still tended to fade in and out of the box score like Marty McFly was messing with his parents’ prom, but with Brogdon, Gill, Perrantes, and Tobey (and arguably Isaiah Wilkins and sometimes Shayok) ahead of him in the pecking order on offense, he could afford to focus on providing the team with an auxiliary ball handler that was willing to make the extra pass. That brings us to this season.
Devon Hall is at a crossroads. Degree in hand, he enters his fourth year in the program and third year of on-court eligibility receiving high marks for his leadership this offseason but probably needing to show more than just leadership to defend his spot in the lineup.
A repeat of Devon’s offensive output from last season isn’t going to cut it with much of our shooting and scoring from last season having moved on. Hall needs to be more aggressive (he used just 14.3% of his possessions on shots last season), accurate (he made 32.8% of his threes after hitting 33.3% as a redshirt freshman), and efficient (he posted the lowest EFG%, true shooting percentage, and offensive rating of any Virginia regular last season) on offense if he wants to fend off the glut of talented newcomers (and Darius Thompson and Marial Shayok) to keep his spot in the rotation.
Do I think he’ll keep it? Yes. Why? It’s simple. Devon does valuable things on both ends of the court — he was third on last year’s team in assist percentage (15.8% of possessions used ended in one), second to Isaiah Wilkins in Defensive Box Score Plus Minus (+4.4), and was the best defensive rebounder on the team outside of the bigs — and the third year is when your average college basketball player (so not Jah Okafor) makes “the jump” on offense. London Perrantes, Joe Harris, Akil Mitchell, and Justin Anderson are all Virginia players of recent vintage who broke out offensively as third years. Add all of that to the fact that Tony Bennett likes to have multiple guys on the court that can handle the ball and initiate the offense (see: London and Malcolm), and Devon’s spot appears to be pretty safe.
If Hall can continue the skilled versatility he’s shown thus far in his career and perhaps bump that three point percentage to 35–40%, he (and we) will probably be in good shape for 2016–2017. I see Devon starting in the backcourt alongside Perrantes, guarding the opponent’s best perimeter player and sometimes allowing LP to play off the ball and hunt shots. It should be a good look for him.
