By Jeff White (jwhite@virginia.edu)
VirginiaSports.com
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — The 18th-ranked Virginia Cavaliers reached the 20-win mark Saturday afternoon (Feb. 7) with a 72-59 victory over ACC rival Syracuse at John Paul Jones Arena.
UVA’s leading scorer, with 16 points, was junior swingman Sam Lewis, and two of his fellow starters, forward Thijs De Ridder and guard Malik Thomas, combined for 17 points. As so often has been the case, however, the Wahoos (20-3 overall, 9-2 ACC) also received significant contributions from their reserves, a group that calls itself the Bench Mob.
In all but one game this season, head coach Ryan Odom has started Lewis, Thomas, De Ridder, point guard Dallin Hall and center Johann Grünloh. But four other players are averaging at least 16.6 minutes per game for Virginia: guards Chance Mallory and Jacori White, center Ugonna Onyenso and forward Devin Tillis.
Against Syracuse (13-11, 4-7), that foursome combined for 27 points, 16 rebounds, 11 assists and six steals.
“That's something we take pride in every game,” said White, who has a fan club known as the Jacarmy whose members wear T-shirts emblazoned with his image. “When we come in, we bring the energy, either lift it up or maintain what the starters are bringing.”
Onyenso said: “We play for one another. Our depth is something different. It doesn't matter who starts. The way we're connected, it's like everybody's playing for one another ...... Coming off the bench, starting, it doesn't matter. Whenever we're in there, we play as hard as we can, and then we come out and the next person is going in.”
Ugo with the exclamation point‼️
— Virginia Men's Basketball (@UVAMensHoops) February 7, 2026
📺 @espn #GoHoos pic.twitter.com/EaeOpX7eCJ
After the Orange cut its deficit to four with 15:01 to play, the Bench Mob helped the Cavaliers separate again. First, Mallory stole an inbounds pass, starting a sequence that ended with White’s pass to Lewis for a 3-pointer. About 45 seconds later, White came up with a steal and dribbled down the court. He missed a contested layup attempt, but Onyenso soared for a stickback dunk that made it 55-46.
Syracuse fought back again, trimming UVA’s lead to four with 5:10 left, but the final five minutes belonged to the home team. The Hoos closed on an 11-2 run to stretch their win streak to four games.
Afterward, Odom praised the Orange’s resilience.
“Every time we would stretch it a little bit, they were coming right back,” he said, “and it was a tight game, obviously, and could have gone either direction. Proud of the way our guys finished it down the stretch there. They executed well, we defended well enough, and came up with key rebounds in order to finish the game off. But the key to the game for us was just the hustle plays.”
Syracuse shot a blistering 58.3% from the floor in the first half and trailed by only three at the break. The Cavaliers’ defense tightened up in the second half, however, and their dominance in other faces of the game proved decisive.
Virginia, which had nine steals, scored 17 points off turnovers and outrebounded the Orange 38-28. Nearly half of the Hoos’ boards came at the offensive end, and that helped them tally 17 second-chance points. Moreover, the disparity in 3-point shooting was staggering. The Cavaliers were 10 for 30 from beyond the arc; the Orange, 3 for 11.
“They shot 30,” Syracuse head coach Adrian Autry said. “We couldn’t make any, and we only got 11 up.”
Syracuse guard Naithan George, who began his college career at Georgia Tech, hit his first eight shots Saturday and finished with a game-high 19 points, and two of his teammates added 13 points apiece. But 6-foot-9 Donnie Freeman, who came in averaging 18.6 points per game, missed 9 of 11 shots and scored only five points. Syracuse’s other starting post player, William Kyle III, finished with two points.
“I definitely thought [the Cavaliers’] physicality was a difference, especially for those two guys, in particular Donnie,” Autry said. “I thought they really did a good job of pushing him out and keeping a body on him, even when they switched with their guards. Virginia's a very big, physical team, an older team, and have a lot of experience. So I thought that physicality really bothered our frontcourt guys.”
In 23 minutes off the bench, the 7-foot Onyenso finished with 10 points, eight rebounds, three blocked shots and two steals.
“Ugo was great,” Odom said.
White supplied a significant lift too, totaling eight points, three assists and two steals in 21-plus minutes. Few things excite the fans at JPJ as much as a 3-pointer by White, and he made two treys Saturday.
His first 3-pointer gave Virginia a 12-point lead with 8:32 left in the first half and forced a Syracuse timeout. His second trey sent the Cavaliers, who’d seen the Orange rally to tie the game, into halftime with a three-point lead.
“Going into the half, we certainly needed a basket there,” Odom said, “and Jacari stepped up.”
"Jacarmy" Baby 🫶 https://t.co/3LLxDxMKcr pic.twitter.com/n1EW49o2RM
— Virginia Men's Basketball (@UVAMensHoops) February 7, 2026
It’s been a challenging season for White, who broke his left wrist Dec. 20 against Maryland and missed Virginia’s next five games. Since returning, he’s been playing with a brace on his wrist, and that’s affected his ball-handling.
“I’ve just been trying to adjust my game to it and playing with it,” White said, “instead of trying to fight it. So I'm just trying to help my teammates and everybody around me. So just doing that and staying in that mindset, staying positive has helped a lot.”
He should be able to shed his brace in about a week and a half, White said. “So I’m excited about that.”