The Virginia basketball team wrapped up its first week the same way it began: with a lopsided win.
The Hoos took home a comfortable 81-62 victory against North Carolina Central Friday night, which followed Monday's 87-53 win against Rider 87-53. That marked the first time since 2007-08 that the Cavaliers have scored 80+ in back-to-back games. This week's 2-0 start pushed UVA's record against nonconference opponents at the John Paul Jones Arena to 106-11 since 2009-10.
Among the big stat stuffers in the game, Thijs De Ridder led the Wahoos with 20 points, 5 rebounds, and 2 assists. Malik Thomas added 12 points and 6 assists, while Sam Lewis and Ugonna Onyenso each had 10 points. Johann Grünloh chipped in 4 points with 11 rebounds and 7 blocked shots. Jacari White and Chance Mallory both had 9 points. Dallin Hall had 7 assists. As a team, the Cavaliers had 22 assists on 28 made shots and they made 45.9% of their shots (28-61). UVA hit 38.9% of its 3's (14-36).
"Some really good highlights out there," Virginia coach Ryan Odom said. "Johann really protecting the basket with 7 blocks. Dallin 7 assists. The ball was moving. The offensive rebounding was there again in the first half. I thought the shot-making was pretty solid. Excited to win and excited to continue to get better."
Overall, UVA controlled the game from start to finish, but it looked different than Monday's contest. In the season opener, it took a while to get going before the Cavaliers eventually dispatched Rider 87-53. On Friday night against North Carolina Central, it was the opposite order. The Hoos jumped to a fast start but didn't sustain that sharp play all the way through the finish line, though they still cruised.
How fast was the start? The hosts sprinted out to a 15-2 lead thanks to 4 3-pointers. That lead ballooned to 26-5 by the 11:14 mark of the first half. At that point, Central had made just one shot from the field and called a timeout. The Cavaliers' lead never dipped below 15 points the rest of the way and grew to as high as 31 points midway through the second half.
After De Ridder made a 3-pointer to give his team that big lead at 65-34 with 10:39 to go, however, the Hoos didn't keep their foot on the gas in Odom's description. They went scoreless for almost three minutes after that bucket and managed just 16 more points the rest of the way. Meanwhile, NCC trimmed the lead back below 20 points. That response, which included dunks, was fueled by 8 points off turnovers, offensive rebounds, and some free throws. That late competitiveness left the second half score at 39-37 in UVA's favor.
Odom did not seem pleased with closing out the game that way, but said it provided the potential for a learning experience.
"The second half, I thought our guys did a nice job in the first 10 minutes and then North Carolina Central did a really good job down the stretch in the last 10 minutes of putting pressure on us and we didn't handle it extremely well," Odom said. "It's something certainly that we can learn from."
Here are more takeaways after a 2-0 start to the season.
Two Towers
With 12 newcomers on this year's roster and Ryan Odom navigating his first season as the head coach, Virginia rolled out quite a few lineup combinations in the two games this week. A new combo on Friday was the two towers duo in the frontcourt. UVA played 7'0" Johann Grünloh and 7'0" Ugonna Onyenso together for a 5-minute stretch in the first half and almost a 2-minute segment in the second half. That was the opposite move from the Rider game on Monday where the Wahoos went with a small ball lineup that featured 6'7" Sam Lewis as a fourth guard in the power forward slot.
Some of the double big lineup has grown out of the absence of Devin Tillis, who likely would be backing up Thijs De Ridder in that forward spot. Tillis had moved on from the use of crutches between Monday and Friday. Still, Odom said the two towers lineup is something the coaches want to continue to investigate as the year progresses.
"I thought they did pretty well in both halves," Odom said. "Certainly in the first half, you could see they're two tall guys out there and you have to monitor when they're in there. You try to do it around a break if you can so they get a little bit of a rest and not having to go too [long of] stretches or at least one of them isn't. They'll get more comfortable as the year goes on so we'll see how that progresses."
Defensively, the duo can be a tough one-two punch because of the ability to protect the rim. Both came to Virginia with the reputation of altering shots. Grünloh and Onyenso can block shots or bother shots when opposing players get around the paint. Grünloh blocked 7 shots, the most by a Cavalier since Ryan Dunn had 7 in 2024 and the most by a Cavalier freshman since Jason Clark had 8 in 2002. Onyenso added 2 blocked shots of his own.
That accounts for 9 missed shots or 21.9% of the 40 total misses on the night by the Eagles. They shot just 31.7% from the field (19-60), though a healthy 42.9% from 3-point range (6-14) helped to some degree.
"Johann had quite a few tonight where his chest was right there in front of the offensive player. It was really textbook wall up. Really proud of him for that," Odom said. "Ugo, he's more of a swatter. He likes to swat the shot and he's really good at that too. I thought he had an excellent first half from that perspective."
Grünloh said blocking shots in his case comes down to a couple of things.
"I think that's the biggest part, the timing part and of course the positioning," Grünloh said. "You can't go forward into their arms, sometimes you've got to straight up and they have to shoot over you. If it's a block, it's cool but if not, they still got a hard shot."
Two Or Three?
When Odom accepted the Virginia job this past spring, everyone knew that meant an offense with high 3-point volume was coming to Charlottesville. VCU, for example, attempted 47.8% of its total shots from 3-point range last season with Odom at the helm, a rate that ranked 21st nationally.
UVA has lived up to those expectations so far, taking 52.8% of its total shots from 3-point range so far. The Hoos fired up 30 triples on Monday against Rider and then another 36 against NC Central on Friday. That's a total of 66 3-point attempts among 125 total shots. Virginia had a better conversion rate Friday, making 14 of 36 3's for 38.9% shooting. In the opener, the Cavaliers hit just 8 of 30 for 26.7% shooting.
Even for a system that wants to take a lot of 3's, has that been a little bit too many in these first two games? Possibly. UVA had the advantage on the interior in both games. The Wahoos made 22 of 34 2-point attempts against Rider (64.7%) and 14 of 25 2-point attempts against NCC (56.0%). Of course, both opponents tried to counter the size and strength difference in the paint by throwing zone defense at the Hoos.
"I think with the zone some of these teams have baited us into shooting some threes that, and we have a really good shooting team so we definitely always want to be shot ready and shoot with confidence, but we want to make sure we get into the heart of the defense," Virginia guard Dallin Hall said. "Inside-out, playing that way is always a lot better of a catch-and-shoot three. We're definitely going to break it down."
Hall noted that the coaches already have been pushing the players to improve on reading and attacking closeouts in practices. That is important in modern offenses that want to create kickout 3's with many coaches calling the effect of beating a closeout 'starting dominoes' where the defense has to chase the ball after it collapses.
Of course, when you have 7-footers that can be a threat around the rim and a 6'9", 238-pound matchup problem in Thijs De Ridder, you don't want to forget about the interior entirely just to drive constantly. Grünloh and Onyenso have combined for 31 points on 12-23 shooting in the two games.
De Ridder, meanwhile, made 10 of 14 shots for 21 points against Rider and then followed it up by making 6 of 10 shots for 20 points against North Carolina Central. While the game against the Eagles included a trio of made 3-pointers by De Ridder, he really challenged the visitors when he got touches in the paint area. That makes the defense have to decide what to do when he's patiently surveying and then going to work around the block or high post.
Odom said Virginia will continue evaluate when and how to use that advantage in the frontcourt. He can't predict what that will look like in the future just yet, particularly when the competition level goes up in head-to-head Power 4 matchups, but he knows that it can be a valuable piece of the puzzle.
"We're just at the beginning of this. I can't answer that right this second," Odom said. "We've got to get a lot better, we know that. Most teams do at this stage. If you stay like your are right now, it's going to be a problem. Our focus is just to continue to play to our strengths and certainly they're a part of that. Trying to get them the ball inside when we can is going to be important for us, but then making the right play when they get it in there also is important."
Two Concerns
Both Rider and North Carolina Central were obviously overmatched against Virginia. Even so, a couple of concerns emerged again in the game against the Eagles.
On offense, as mentioned briefly above, Central's use of zone bothered the Hoos for stretches. That makes some sense given that this roster full of new faces is still learning how to play together. Zones inherently can cause some indecision even for the most experienced teams with cumulative court time together, much less teams where all five starters and the entire rotation has a total of four games together if you count preseason exhibitions.
That's why Odom was hesitant to say that the Cavaliers had produced an offensive outing on Friday that was more like what the coaches expect.
"I don't know that I would say that," Odom said. "I think their zone bothered us I would say. I felt like too many times we were playing outside of three and above the time line. They pushed us out and we didn't play below them enough. Later in the first half, we began to get a little bit of a rhythm and then certainly in the beginning of the second half, I thought our guys did a nice job of beginning to find the gaps to penetrate. Because ultimately you have to penetrate any kind of a zone whether it's by the pass or by the bounce and we did a little bit of both. The guys were unselfish and found one another."
On defense, the Hoos continue to give up a lot of offensive rebounds. Mentioned as a concern in the preseason by Odom, Virginia gave up 16 offensive boards to Central on Friday on 41 missed shots. That means UVA had a defensive rebounding rate of approximately 68% (28 defensive boards out of 41 missed opportunities). Rider also had 13 offensive rebounds.
Two More Things
With UVA off to a 2-0 start, the Odom era is off to a good start. Two things that were expected under Odom have been on display in the first week. One, the Hoos have fullcourt pressure the whole game. Two, they have played a lot of players.
The Virginia defense has been defending man to man fullcourt in both games. UVA tries to make the first catch of an inbounds pass difficult and then the goal shifts to making that ballhandler uncomfortable. The players want to get the dribbler to change directions a couple of times if possible and fan the ball out toward the sidelines. Odom described the goal of the pressure on Friday.
"It's not to force turnovers. It's to pressure and guard their ballhandlers fullcourt to take the time really is what we're trying to do," Odom said. "Occasionally, you'll get some steals just because of it. That's not to say we don't have a press where we trap and do some of those types of things. We have presses where it's a dead ball or a free throw and things like that, but we really haven't gotten to that yet. Right now we're just focusing on getting better at guarding the ball fullcourt and really sustaining pressure up the court and trying to take as much clock as we can."
Through two games, Virginia has rolled out a starting give of Thijs De Ridder, Johann Grünloh, Sam Lewis, Malik Thomas, and Dallin Hall. Then the Hoos send in Ugonna Onyenso, Chance Mallory, Jacari White, and Elijah Gertrude for regular opportunities. Martin Carrere has gotten some minutes as well. That's 10 players picking up some playing time so far even without Devin Tillis available.
The bench outscored Central's reserves 32-7 and it produced 31 points against Rider too.
"I'm proud of our bench," Odom said. "Chance always comes in and gives a lift. Elijah does too, Jacari certainly as well. And Ugo has been excellent off the bench so far. We're confident in those guys."
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