For more than 15 minutes Wednesday night, Virginia and California dueled through a back-and-forth ACC basketball game. The teams swapped the lead six times with two ties and UVA's lead still stood at just 5 points late in the first half.
Then the Hoos hit the accelerator and the Bears had trouble keeping up. The once narrow lead ballooned into a 24-point Virginia win, 84-60.
"I'm not worried about the margin, it's more about how we're playing and I thought our guys played well tonight," Cavalier coach Ryan Odom said. "Defensively, we're trying to make strides, we're trying to get better, the guys are focused on that. Offensively, we can't lose that ability to really share the ball and put pressure on our opponents. I think we're improving. We can't stay where we're at, though. Great teams, teams that want to compete for championships have to take care of home court and you have to find ways to win on the road. It's tough to win on the road. Our guys were able to do that the other day, which was a huge deal for us and the focus overall with our group has been there."
The decisive surge started with less than a minute to go before halftime. A Sam Lewis layup with 56 seconds left was followed by a Malik Thomas 3-pointer with 3 seconds remaining, which turned a 38-33 lead into a double-digit edge at 43-33. The Hoos bridged the halves with a flurry on both sides of the break. After that 5-0 run in the final minute of the first half, Virginia followed up with an 18-4 run to start the second half.
The lead never fell below 10 points again and grew as large as 27 points. With the outcome well in hand, some fans exited the John Paul Jones Arena early as the clock ticked toward midnight after a 9 p.m. tipoff.
Cal coach Mark Madsen credited the Cavaliers for being ready to play and for taking control of the game in that decisive stretch.
"It was closer in the first half, but I think Virginia really did an excellent job of going to the glass, getting those offensive rebounds, getting the second chance points. ... In the second half, we didn't get the 50-50 balls, Virginia did," Madsen said. "Give Virginia a lot of credit, they came out ready to play and they deserved to win this game."
UVA's success was a balanced effort. Malik Thomas led the way with 20 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists but five players landed in double figures and Virginia put together one of its best defensive efforts of the season. Thijs De Ridder, Johann Grünloh, Ugonna Onyenso, and Sam Lewis all joined Thomas with strong scoring nights with matching 12-point totals. The Hoos also got 8 points and 7 assists from Chance Mallory as part of a balanced night overall.
Virginia shot 50.0% from the field (30-60), 31.0% from 3 (9-29), and 65.2% from the free throw line (15-23), but had 23 assists to just 11 turnovers. On the other bench, Cal shot 35.2% overall (19-54), 15.8% from 3 (3-19), and 86.4% from the free throw line (19-22). The Bears had 12 assists and 9 turnovers.
The Hoos improved to 13-2 overall and 2-1 in the ACC with the victory. They host Stanford on Saturday at 2:15 p.m. before heading back on the road. First, though, here are three takeaways from Odom's first ACC home win.
Too Much Up Front
Much has been made of UVA's 3-point attack this season, both for volume - the number of attempts the Hoos take - and for the success they have making them. And the hosts did fire up 29 long-range shots Wednesday night with 9 made 3's giving them a 18-point advantage in the category. But, part of what makes this year's team tough to defend is that it can attack opponents in multiple ways.
That was on display against California. The frontcourt combination of Thijs De Ridder, Johann Grünloh, and Ugonna Onyenso put pressure on the Bears near the rim from beginning to end. Grünloh scored the first basket of the night for a 2-0 lead and Onyenso broke out for a dunk in the final minutes that gave Virginia its biggest lead of 27 points at 75-48.
In the end, the trio combined for 36 points, 21 rebounds, 6 assists, 5 blocked shots, and 1 steal. De Ridder had 12 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists before fouling out. Grünloh posted 12 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 blocked shot. Onyenso joined in with 12 points, 9 rebounds, 4 blocked shots, and 1 steal, that one leading to the crowd-pleasing dunk in the second half.
Odom said the one-two punch of Grünloh and Onyenso at center can give opponents problems.
"I told 'em after the game, they were a two-headed monster," Odom said. "They both protected the rim really well. They both were energetic with their play. I was impressed."
California had a plan to deal with the frontcourt attack and it bothered Virginia at times in the first half. The Bears often blitzed the on-ball screen attack of the Cavaliers, bothering timing and getting some deflections or forced turnovers earlier in the game. They also doubled post touches and collapsed on roll catches or drives in the paint by the UVA bigs.
Virginia's frontcourt made that strategy pay, though. De Ridder and Grünloh, in particular, used the attention to become facilitators and handed out 6 assists with no turnovers between them. That included one of the biggest ones of the game. With less than 30 seconds to play in the first half and the game still at a single-digit margin, Grünloh caught a pass in the paint that drew a lot of reaction from the Cal defense. He pinged the ball out to Thomas for an open 3-pointer that pushed the lead to 10 and the Bears never really got close again.
"We have bigs that are phenomenal and just finding the open man always," Thomas said. "Their pick-and-roll coverage, they bring two to the ball so shout out to Joh for just seeing that skip pass and I was able to knock down a wide-open shot to bring us some momentum in the game and then that carried into the second half."
Defense Showing Signs
While the offense seemed to click quickly for the Cavaliers this season despite having 12 newcomers on the roster, the defense wasn't always firing on all cylinders. As ACC play heats up, however, Virginia is showing some signs of improvement on that end of the floor.
That's evident from some of the numbers against the better teams on the schedule this season. Back in November, UVA allowed 46.6% overall and 43.8% shooting from 3-point range in a 5-point win against Northwestern. The Wildcats finished with 78 points. The next game saw Butler connect on 48.2% shooting overall 40.0% from 3-point range as the Bulldogs handed the Hoos their first loss 80-73.
The next tests against Texas and Dayton went better. The Longhorns managed 40.7% shooting overall and 21.1% from 3-point range as Virginia rolled 88-69. In Charlotte, the Flyers landed at 39.1% shooting and 30.4% from 3-point range as the Cavaliers won 86-74. Maryland posted similar numbers after the exam break in an 82-70 UVA win at the JPJ. The Terps shot 40.7% overall, but did knock down 41.4% of their 3's.
Finally, the start of ACC play featured two road games for Virginia at Virginia Tech and NC State. In a three overtime loss, 95-85, UVA held the Hokies to 35.4% shooting overall and 32.1% from 3. The Hoos followed that up with a 76-61 win while holding the Wolfpack to 36.0% shooting overall and 25.0% from 3-point range, a performance that left NCSU coach Will Wade praising the Virginia defense.
Fast forward to the ACC home opener on Wednesday night. California shot only 35.2% overall and 15.8% from 3-point range. That included a particularly rough second half where the Bears shot 25.9% from the floor when they went 0-10 from behind the arc.
"I feel like we did [take a step forward], there's no question about it," said Odom, though he called out the team's fouling problem as disappointing after the Cavaliers committed 21. "They're tough to guard. They seek a lot of 3's, 50% of their shots are from 3, so you have to get out there and so you run the risk of getting beat off the bounce. And it's hard to do both when you're playing against a high volume 3-point shooting team. I thought our guys did a nice job. The discipline was there the majority of the night."
California found a groove early in the game with sharp cuts and clean looks, including a backdoor layup and a snake dribble jumper off of ball-screen look. That fueled a good start for the visitors as they opened 8-13 shooting (61.5%) and led 22-20 after the first 10 minutes. Virginia transfer Dai Dai Ames played a big role in that stretch with 9 points as he made 3 shots and 3 free throws. He ended up with a team-high 18 points, while Justin Pippen added 17 and John Camden had 15.
After the hot start, UVA seemed to clean up whatever troubles it had and defenders kept California dribblers and cutters in front much more often. The Bears shot 11 of 41 (26.8%) the rest of the game.
"We got some things that we had targeted and it worked early," Madsen said. "They made some adjustments and then we weren't able to execute our adjustments later in the game. I think that Virginia just was one step ahead on the adjustments tonight as well."
The biggest area of improvement of late has been on the defensive glass. The Hoos had allowed big offensive rebounding totals for their opponents in multiple games this season. In some of the high profile games, Butler had 14 offensive rebounds, Texas had 13, Maryland had 17, and VT had 20. Note, that the season's only two losses to date are on that list.
Onyenso said that has been a constant target for improvement and something that the team has tried to focus on in games. California came up with only 6 offensive rebounds despite missing 35 shots and 3 free throws on that end of the floor. Onyenso contributed the most to UVA's defensive rebounding column with 8 boards on that end of the floor.
"We've had our ups and downs, especially with the defensive rebounding," Onyenso said. "As time keeps going by, we keep setting goals for ourselves. Whenever we get into a game, we have to attack it, especially with defensive rebounding. As we keep improving at that, our defensive game is going to go to another level so we just have to keep crashing, getting rebounds, defensive rebounds, that's one of our biggest [things with] what we need to improve in."
Speaking Of Defense
The Hoos had 23 assists on 30 made baskets Wednesday night while seven players had 6+ points. That type of balanced scoring effort with a high assist total is exactly what Odom likes to see from his teams. Malik Thomas led the way offensively with 20 points on 7-12 shooting overall and he made 4 of 8 3-pointers.
Odom, however, was much more impressed with Thomas' other contributions. The senior guard grabbed 4 rebounds, dished out 3 assists, and logged a career-high 2 blocked shots. It seems that Odom appreciates the grind it takes to get going in other areas, while Thomas has an innate ability to score.
The Cavalier coach called Wednesday's performance the best defensive game for Thomas yet in a Virginia uniform.
"Today, it was his best defensive performance. He fouled a couple of times there at the end, but overall that was his best defensive performance of the year," Odom said. "So he's really worked hard at that. The coaches have done a great job of watching film with him and really helping him because the way they played defense at San Franciso was just a little bit different than the way that we do it here. There's been some growing pains with that."
"Malik is wired to score. He can score with his eyes closed. Like, he's really good," Odom concluded. "The key is we want him to be a well-rounded player and he's getting there."
To Thomas' credit, he hasn't resisted the challenge defensively. The Hoos' fullcourt defensive pressure and some of their switching concepts in halfcourt settings can be a challenge as players adapt to the system, particularly if they spent most of their college career in a different scheme like Thomas. As much as he seems to be finding his stride offensively, the work on defense may be paying off at the moment too.
"It's been great. The coaches have been doing a great job of just staying on me on the defensive end just knowing that I got to stay engaged. Offense will come," Thomas said. "It's been a great process honestly because when I first got here, I had a lot to work on and I'm grateful to see it's finally paying off and it's only going to get better from here."
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