The Virginia basketball team played outside of Charlottesville before Thanksgiving, but The Greenbrier Classic in nearby West Virginia still featured plenty of Hoo fans in the ballroom. The season's first road game figured to provide a different test as the Hoos played on an opponent's homecourt at Texas on Wednesday night.
UVA was up to the task in the ACC-SEC Challenge. In fact, the Cavaliers made a little program history with an impressive 88-69 victory that represented the largest margin of victory in a road win at an SEC opponent in school history. That pushed the team's record to 7-1 on the season with another neutral site game on deck next as Virginia takes on Dayton in Charlotte in Saturday at noon.
"We knew what we were up against coming in here," Cavalier coach Ryan Odom said. "We played our A game today. We had a really good effort all around all the way from the preparation, all the way through the game. I thought our guys didn't a really nice job against a really good team of imposing their will and doing the best that they could on each possession. We had not played that way defensively so far this year. Offensively, I thought our guys shared the ball. They did a nice job moving it and trusting one another."
Virginia picked apart the Texas defense to the tune of 57.1% shooting while scoring 1.419 points per possession. That included 12 3-pointers and 13 layups or dunks. Those high efficiency shots created two halves of 40+ points. UVA built a double-digit lead within 10 minutes and never let the hosts back into the game the rest of the way. The Hoos led by at least 17 points for the entire second half, spending the majority of the time with a margin in the 20's.
Unsurprisingly with the offense humming, multiple players got into the act. Nine players put points on the board and six different guys posted at least 9 points. Chance Mallory led the way with 16 points, boosted in part by an 8-9 night at the free throw line. Johann Grünloh had 15 points on 6-7 shooting, Thijs De Ridder had 13 points on 4-6 shooting, Malik Thomas had 11 points on 4-7 shooting, and Jacari White had 10 points on 3-5 shooting. Ugonna Onyenso chipped in 9 points on 4-8 shooting.
Those last two players provided two of the highlights of the night.
After Dallin Hall grabbed an offensive rebound in the first half, White sprinted to the ball-side wing and caught a kickout pass that he turned into a 3-pointer while being fouled. He made the free throw for a 4-point play that came late in the half when the Longhorns were still hanging around and trying to make a push. Later, it was White on the passing end when he drove toward the basket in the second half and then spotted Onyenso behind the defense. White lifted an alley-oop pass that Onyenso had to climb to get, but he slammed home the one-handed dunk that delighted his team.
UVA paired that type of offensive night with an improved defensive effort as well. While there were still some problems at times (15 dunks and layups allowed plus 13 offensive rebounds allowed), Texas managed just 40.7% shooting and 1.078 points per possession. Nasir Mann led his team with 18 points, while Jordan Watford and Yoav Berman tallied 10 each. The Cavaliers had 4 blocked shots and 5 steals.
Here are more takeaways from another the team's first road win of the season.
Ball Movement Revival
When Virginia took its first loss of the season at The Greenbrier Classic, Butler made the Hoos uncomfortable and managed to force into more isolation possessions. Basically, the ball didn't have life. The Cavaliers ended up with 6 assists.
Ryan Odom has called passing the basketball and unselfishness an entry ticket requirement so it's safe to say that outing didn't sit well with the first year UVA coach. The Wahoos bounced back with 24 assists on 32 made baskets against Queens last week and then followed it up Wednesday night with 18 assists on 28 field goals. The fact that the assist rate translated in the season's first road game and the team's first Power 4 test since the Greenbrier was a positive sign.
Individually, Dallin Hall led the way with 4 assists while Chance Mallory added 3. Thijs De Ridder, Sam Lewis, Ugonna Onyenso, and Devin Tillis all had 2.
The ball popped around in the first half in particular. The Wahoos produced 12 assists on 16 made baskets in the first 20 minutes and 8 of those 12 assists accounted for 3-pointers. Getting 24 points that way can be a scoreboard separator in a hurry.
"We took care of the ball. We got clean looks. Certainly, we got off to a hot start from 3, which really helped and gave us some momentum," Odom said.
Rebooting the assist machine wasn't simply a pep talk or coaching demand, though. Virginia did some things to generate more ball and player movement that helped create those results. Some examples: a quick little backdoor play for a layup, a rip screen to bring a player to the block with a screen-the-screener action for a potential 3 up top, and some Iverson cuts (the player switches sides of the floor while running over the top of two screens) to move a player's catch point before flowing into different actions. Mix that in with the ball screen looks that were already on display and it can open up a lot of opportunities for assists and different players benefitting.
The combination of outside shooting threats, drivers that can touch the paint, post-up options, rim runners after ball screens, and offensive rebounding is a lot of different checkboxes to cover on the scouting report. Focus too much on the perimeter and there's room for someone like De Ridder to operate. Focus too much on the paint and there are multiple shooters around the perimeter. So while UVA is still a work in progress, there's a lot of pieces to move around the chess board for this roster.
"These guys share the ball," Odom said. "We have multiple guys that can shoot it from behind the arc. We have big guys that can knock 'em down on occasion behind the arc, which tests the defense even more and it allows our perimeter players like Chance and others to get inside the paint. So offensively, we're a tough team to match up with when you can do both."
Grünloh Groove
Johann Grünloh struggled a little bit against Northwestern and Butler in the season's tougher tests to date. He finished with 7 points and 14 rebounds in those two games combined while shooting 3 of 10 from the field.
Grünloh responded to those games with two really solid efforts. In the last two games, Grünloh has made a combined 10 of 12 shots to go along with 15 rebounds and 3 assists. Against Queens, he made 4 of 5 shot attempts for 13 points. That was part of a double-double that also featured 10 rebounds. On the road at Texas, the German center came up with 15 points on 6-7 shooting with 5 rebounds.
Grünloh started the year a little bit slow behind the arc as he made 1 of 11 attempts through the first six games. The last two games, however, have been a different story. He made both of his 3-point attempts against Queens and then knocked down 2 of 3 long-range looks against Texas.
More important than those stats, perhaps, is it looks like Grünloh found a groove. The confidence looked very different on the road than it did in those two Greenbrier games. That was evident on one play where he made a move in the paint and then spun out of it into a one-leg fall-away reminiscent of another German, Dirk Nowitzki.
If Grünloh continues to get more comfortable, Virginia will be even more dangerous on offense.
Chance Mallory Continues His Fast Start
At this point, it's pretty well known that freshman guard Chance Mallory grew up watching Virginia basketball and wanting to be part of it. He attended games in the upper deck at the John Paul Jones Arena. He also blossomed as a high school player and became a high-level recruit. While he had to wait it out through a coaching change, Mallory ended up in orange and blue.
Now, he's making the most of it really quickly.
Against Texas, that shook out as a team-high 16 points to go along with 3 rebounds and 3 assists. Mallory made all 3 of his shot attempts in the win and cashed in 8 of 9 free throws as well. He did not have a turnover.
Wednesday was just the latest line in an impressive start, though. Mallory has scored in double figures in 6 of 8 games so far. He has multiple assists in 6 games as well, but has multiple turnovers in just one game to date. Keep in mind that Mallory is also shooting 48% from 3-point range with 12 makes on 25 attempts for the season. That's a remarkable level of consistency for a freshman just beginning his college career.
Mallory's play has been good enough already to generate some fan conversations about the starting lineup. Some have suggested that Mallory should start in Hall's place since he's playing so well at this moment. That may not be the right move necessarily.
Hall, mind you, leads the team in assists with 32 helpers so far this season. That includes six games with multiple assists and five games with 4+ in that category. The one-two punch is serving Virginia well and it puts Mallory in a much easier role as a true freshman. Feel the game out early, then check in and inject energy and playmaking into the lineup. Coming off the bench reduces foul worries as well.
Plus, there's no guarantee that any sort of shuffle would generate the same productivity, particularly with passing and assists, that both players are currently enjoying.
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