Hoos Eager to Test Themselves in Different Setting

By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — Several University of Virginia men’s basketball players arrived on Grounds later in the summer, but the rest of the team has been together for workouts and practices at John Paul Jones Arena since the middle of June, save for a break in August.

“It’s been a long time playing against these guys,” said freshman guard Chance Mallory, looking around the Wahoos’ practice gym at his teammates.

Small wonder, then, that the Hoos are looking forward to their two preseason exhibition games. The first comes Thursday night in Nashville, Tenn., where UVA takes on Vanderbilt. The second is Oct. 24 at JPJ, where Virginia hosts Villanova.

“The guys are enthused about the opportunity to play against somebody else,” Ryan Odom, who’s in his first year as UVA’s head coach, said during a recent media availability at JPJ.

“This is going to be my first time playing an exhibition, so it’s going to be pretty interesting how that goes,” guard Malik Thomas said. “We’re all excited to play against someone else, to actually have that real game feeling of playing against an opponent and getting after it.”

Another UVA guard, Dallin Hall, said it’ll be good “to see some different schemes, defenses, coverages, just to see where we’re at. I think we have a great squad. We have great depth on this team, which makes practice a lot of fun and competitive. So we’re excited to see how we match up and where we need to get better and where we’re doing well.”

For years, college teams played closed scrimmages in the preseason, with no fans watching. Exhibitions that are open to the public are a recent development, and they’re new not only to UVA players but to Odom, whose teams at VCU tested themselves with closed scrimmages.

Odom said he isn’t sure what to expect in the upcoming exhibitions, “because this is the first time we’ve done it.”  But he knows this: “I want to see the guys against another team.”

Of the 15 players on the Cavaliers’ roster, only three were in the program last season: Elijah Gertrude, Desmond Roberts and Carter Lang. Three of the newcomers (Mallory, Silas Barksdale and Owen Odom) are freshmen, and two others (Thijs De Ridder and Johann Grünloh) are imports from Europe. The rest are transfers from other college programs: Thomas from San Francisco, Hall from BYU, Devin Tillis from UC Irvine, Sam Lewis from Toledo, Jacari White from North Dakota State, Martin Carrere from VCU, and Ugonna Onyenso from Kansas State.

“For us to be able to play as many guys as we can, get them out on the court, get them some experience, especially with an entirely new roster, I think it’s really important,” Odom said.

He’s been impressed with the unselfishness of his players, and they’re “a little bit further ahead offensively” than he expected, Odom said.

“Defensively, they’ve done a good job so far of developing our full-court pressure. They’re getting better daily. We’re seeing growth in the half-court defense as well. There are still areas that need to improve. The rebounding has to improve … We’re offensive rebounding really well, but we’re not defensive rebounding, at least against ourselves, the way that we need to. So there’s a lot of room for growth, and that’s normal this time of year. But I do like the mood of the team. They come every day to work. They’re energetic. They seem very committed to doing their best this season.”

Odom acknowledged, though, that many questions won’t be answered until the Cavaliers face external competition.

“I think we’re doing our best right now without having played anybody else,” Odom said. “And so what might be a strength in our gym, when we start to play somebody else, maybe it’s not a strength.”

Virginia’s rotation has yet to be determined, he said.

“We want to play as many as we can,” Odom said. “When you’re pressuring up the court, it takes a certain level of fitness to do that. It’s really tough to play 30-plus minutes playing that hard, and so you definitely want eight, nine, 10 [players] in there. And so I think we have 10 guys right now that are pretty good players. We have more than that, but in terms of 10 that I could put in a game, probably that’s where we’re going to start.”

Not only are the Cavaliers deep, they’re big. Grünloh and Onyenso are each listed at 7-foot, De Ridder, Barksdale, Carrere and Lang are 6-foot-9, Tillis and Lewis are 6-foot-7, and Thomas is 6-foot-5.

De Ridder, who’s from Belgium, is an imposing presence at close to 250 pounds, and “Thijs is certainly willing to use his body,” Odom said. “I think that’s one of his strengths.”

Experience is not an issue for De Ridder, who’ll turn 23 in January. By comparison, Grünloh, who’s from Germany, recently turned 20. He weighs about 240 pounds and has yet to fill out his frame.

“And so while he has seen some bigger bodies in his previous stop, in Germany, I think it’ll be a different level here for him,” Odom said. “And so he’s working his way through that. But I do like where we are right now with [frontcourt physicality]. But ultimately, our opponents are going to tell us, are we ready or not?  And so we’ve got two coming at us in the next two weeks that will give us a lot of information about what we need to do.”

Of the transfers Virginia added this year, five are heading into their final college seasons: Thomas, Hall, White, Tillis and Onyenso. The Cavaliers’ collective experience is valuable, Odom said, but he believes “character is the No. 1 thing. I think we’ve established and put together a roster of guys that [are] just really good dudes. They enjoy one another. They’re committed to coming in and learning every single day. And so you’re ahead of the game when you have that, for sure.”

UVA opens the season Nov. 3 against Rider at JPJ. Between now and then, Odom said, the “focus is on getting better every day and in trying to do our best to improve all aspects of our team. It’s the mental edge. We want guys really confident, but not overconfident. We certainly are working on all aspects defensively, putting in our system, and really getting these guys ready for different situations that they’re going to see early in the season.

“You have to be ready on game one. And these next two exhibitions are going to be really helpful for us in preparation for the season. Offensively, we’re really trying to define the way that we’re going to play, and I think we’re in a good spot there right now.”

In practice, Odom said, the players “get a little bit winded from time to time, which is normal. And so it’ll be interesting to see kind of how that shows up when we play against someone else and they’re only having to play a three-and-a-half-minute stretch. The key is, they can’t save it. They have to, in that three-and-a-half-minute stretch, go really, really hard and know that somebody’s coming to [sub for them] pretty quickly, and we need that person to do [the same] when they come in.  And so I’m looking forward to seeing those guys out there competing.”

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