By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — In its final game before the start of ACC play, No. 21 Virginia dominated American from start to finish Monday night at John Paul Jones Arena.
Forward Thijs De Ridder rang up a season-high 27 points, on 11-for-15 shooting, to lead the Cavaliers, who never trailed in a 95-51 win over the Eagles. Also scoring in double figures for UVA (11-1), which shot a season-high 62.3 percent from the floor, were Malik Thomas (11 points), Sam Lewis (11), Elijah Gertrude (11) and Chance Mallory (10). Dallin Hall had a game-high seven assists for Virginia.
The Eagles are in their third season under head coach Duane Simpkins, a former Maryland standout, and during his tenure they’ve faced many Power 4 opponents, including North Carolina and Villanova.
“This is the best team from top to bottom that I think we have competed against,” Simpkins said of the Wahoos. “We’ve competed against teams with size and length and everything, but they are together, they're connected, and they can really, really shoot.”
Virginia was coming off an 80-72 win over former ACC rival Maryland at JPJ. Head coach Ryan Odom was happy with the victory but displeased with the way the Hoos closed out the game. He challenged his team to play better and harder against American, an NCAA tournament team last season, and the Cavaliers responded.
“Our guys were on it today,” said Odom, a former American assistant who’s in his first year at Virginia. “They did a really nice job from the tip. We just challenged our guys to play every possession of this game like it was the last. Every possession matters—EPM—and throughout the game, our guys did that.
“We were not going to play perfectly. We knew that. We were going to make some mistakes, and we did. But we played through the mistakes. I thought our guys continued to play. No matter who we subbed in, there was energy. There was effort. There was a desire to play together all the way to the end of the game.”
The win over Maryland was costly for Virginia. Jacari White, a spark off the bench all season, broke his left wrist when he landed after throwing down a highlight-reel dunk on which he was fouled.
White, who’s right-handed, tried to play through the injury, but before long he had to come out of the game, and X-rays Saturday night revealed the break. He’s scheduled to have surgery Tuesday, Odom said.
With White out, Gertrude played nearly 16 minutes and scored a season-high 11 points Monday. He was 4 for 4 from the field and 1 for 1 from the line. Two of his field goals were 3-pointers.
“The strength of this team is the depth that we have, and you saw it tonight with Elijah getting in there and playing,” Odom said. “And we have options, no different than we did when Devin [Tillis] was out to start the year. And so we're confident overall in this group, and we're confident in Jacari getting back.”
Gertrude, a 6-foot-4 guard who missed last season while recovering from a torn ACL, hadn’t played more than four minutes in a game since Nov. 15. But he continued to work hard in practice and maintained a positive attitude. And when his opportunity came against American, No. 12 made the most of it.
“He's athletic,” Odom said. “He can shoot. He made some shots tonight, which was great. He was very poised with his ball-handling and took it when it was there, multiple times. He made really nice passes out there tonight. And so I think you saw the beginning of what could become a very confident and important player for us going forward. Not just now, but the future here. So I’m excited for Elijah.”
Gertrude said he knows the coaches have confidence in him, and “it’s really just my job to go out there and play my game, take care of the ball and just get everyone involved. The coaches have preached staying ready, and that’s what I was trying to do.”
The 6-foot-9, 238-pound De Ridder came into the game averaging a team-high 15.1 points, and he’d scored at least 20 points five times before Monday night. Against Maryland, though, he was 1 for 8 from the floor and 3 for 6 from the line.
Against American, De Ridder was 3 for 4 from 3-point range and 8 for 10 from the floor overall in the first half, and he went into the break with 21 points.
“I was just extremely focused,” De Ridder said.
With his strength, De Ridder can bully defenders around the basket, and he was locked in Monday night. His 27 points were the most by a Cavalier this season.
“This was a big step forward for him today,” Odom said. “He was frustrated after the game the other day. Not frustrated about winning, of course, but his individual play ... I think he played with more purpose today. He played not so much on edge. And I think that's really important for his growth going forward. He is a beast, he's a really good player, and when he lets the game come to him, but then attacks when it's there, he's really good.”
Virginia has 19 regular-season games left, 18 of them against ACC opponents. (UVA plays Ohio State in Nashville, Tenn., on Feb. 14.) As the Hoos get ready to embark on their ACC schedule, Odom said, he likes the way his team has come together. Of the players on the roster, only three were in the program last season.
“We feel good about it,” Odom said. “Certainly, we would have loved to have beaten Butler, but we didn't. I think we've developed some shared experiences, this group has, that can propel it forward. The other night against Maryland clearly helped us today. It opened our guys' eyes to [the fact that] you have to play every play regardless of the opponent or what the score is or where you're at, at that particular moment.
“We’re just encouraging our guys overall to be present and in the moment. We realize that the crowds are gonna get bigger, whether it's on the road or at home, the stakes are gonna get higher, the pressure's gonna elevate, and we have to handle it really, really well. And we're not gonna be perfect at that, I understand that, because this is a really good league this year.”