Virginia center struts his stuff

If Virginia freshman John Brandenburg doesn’t have a nickname yet, maybe teammates should start calling him “Kareem.”

In UVa’s win over Brown on Tuesday night, Brandenburg once again showed off a pretty hook shot. It wasn’t quite the skyhook that NBA hall of famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar made famous, but in limited minutes this season, the shot has seemed effective.

“That’s new,” Brandenburg said. “We’ve really worked on developing that since I got here. In high school I was more of a jumpshooter and didn’t really need the hook because I was so much taller than everyone. Now, because everyone’s so athletic, I really need to use that hook.

“I think it’s going to be great at this level.”

Brandenburg finished with two points and a rebound in his four minutes. Both his shot attempts were jump hooks, the first of which was a longer one that hit nothing but net.

“I wasn’t even thinking at that point,” said the 6-foot-11 St. Louis native. “Instinct took over and all the reps [in practice] we’ve done just took over. I just took the hook.

“After I shot it, I was like, ‘Wow, that hook was like 10 feet away — I shouldn’t have even shot that,’ but it worked out alright.”

Virginia coach Dave Leitao has seemed satisfied with Brandenburg’s progression, despite the fact he has appeared in just four games.

“For him, we’re trying to get him to be aggressive in everything that he does — running, defensively, offensively — just adjusting to the pace of college basketball,” Leitao said. “I think at 6-11, he’s been so used to being five, six, seven, eight inches taller than everybody, that playing against same-sized guys and guys like Assane [Sene] is a new experience for him. He’s just getting adjusted and caught up with that.”

Even if he doesn’t make much of an impact this season, Brandenburg says he’s glad that he wasn’t redshirted, which many UVa fans were thinking he might be.

“If I was a redshirt, there would be no [motivation],” he said. “I think now I can really get rewarded if I practice well. I think it’s always nice having that in front of me.”

The upbeat Brandenburg does not seem down about his limited playing time.

“Every time you reach a new level, you’re either going to excel quickly or it’s going to take some time for you to get comfortable,” he said. “Obviously for me, the main thing for me has been strength. I’m just trying to get stronger.”

When Brandenburg arrived at Virginia in the summer, he weighed 225 pounds and looked very light on his feet for someone of his height. Since then, under the guidance of strength and conditioning coach Shawn Brown, he has added over 20 pounds.

“Now I’m just eating everything and trying to put on a lot of weight … Shawn will put weight on anybody,” said Brandenburg, smiling. “That’s a little heavy for me right now because I don’t know if it’s all good weight. I’m having a little trouble running.”

With Virginia about to get into the teeth of its conference schedule, Brandenburg doesn’t figure to see much, if any, action in the next few games. But you have to figure that if UVa performs as poorly as a lot of people expect — the Cavs were picked to finish last in the ACC — Brandenburg will get his chance before long as Leitao looks to the future.

Dunks

Leitao said Sene, who is now 5 of 14 from the free-throw line after going 0 of 4 on Tuesday, has been affected by an injury to his thumb. “It’s heavily taped and has a pretty good amount of stuff going on underneath it,” Leitao said. “He doesn’t quite feel the ball, so not only has it hindered his ability to make them consistently, but I think it’s affected him mentally, too. But he has a pretty good touch and without [the injury], I’d like to think he’d be around 60-65 percent and going up as the years go on…I’m not worried about it over the long haul.”