CHARLOTTESVILLE — His first basket came on a pretty turnaround jumper from the right baseline, his second on a nifty jump hook.
Assane Sene’s third and final field goal Saturday was more pedestrian: A stickback late in the University of Virginia’s 84-70 loss to No. 22 Xavier.
On an afternoon when the 7-0, 234-pound freshman from Senegal grabbed a career-best 11 rebounds and blocked two shots, nobody left John Paul Jones Arena raving about his offense. The six points matched his career high, but Sene made only 3 of 8 shots from the floor and missed both of his free throws.
Still, on a team that desperately needs another low-post scorer to complement sophomore forward Mike Scott (11 ppg), the left-handed Sene is an intriguing prospect. Cavaliers coach Dave Leitao wants Sene to continue to attack the basket, whether the shots fall or not.
“I don’t think we’ll see the benefits of that for awhile,” Leitao said after the Xavier game. “It definitely won’t be this year, even if he has 15 points in a game. … He’s a work in progress. I think he needs a lot of reps offensively. I think he needs some strength and some understanding of low-post play, but I think he has a real chance to develop into a good offensive threat.”
Sene, who has started four of the seven games he’s played for UVa, averages 3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.9 blocks and 19.3 minutes. He’s 8-for-24 from the field and 5-for-10 from the line.
Not until he was 14 did Sene, now 19, start playing hoops. He has good instincts, though, and “a little bit of a touch, too,” Leitao said. “We’ve got to just make up for lost time and get him thousands and thousands of reps.”
Leitao has been patient with his project.
“Every time I make a mistake in practice, he tells me, ‘If you do this, you’re going to do better,’” Sene said.
“Those two shots that I scored today” — the turnaround and the jump hook — “I was working on with Coach Leitao. He told me, ‘If you do that, I know you’re going to score,’ and that’s what I was doing. I knew that even if I missed it, he would never get mad at me, because he knows I’m trying to get better.”
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