ACC Preview #1 – UNC || ACC Preview #2 – NC State || ACC Preview #3 – Wake Forest
Last year, Virginia washed out the last remnants of Bennett Ball, as Ryan Odom, who loves to run, changed things for the better.
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Former coach Tony Bennett preferred to keep games around 5o points or lower, and then his teams would strangle at the end.
Generally speaking, this worked really well, but one team that flipped the script on Bennett was UMBC, in 2018.
You remember: Virginia was the #1 seed in the tournament, and UMBC didn’t just beat them, they annihilated them, winning 74-54. Interestingly, perhaps the two biggest upsets in college basketball history involved the Cavaliers, who lost them both: the UMBC game, and the even more shocking upset by Chaminade in 1982, 77-72. That team had Ralph Sampson, who was an incredible player.
And of course, the coach of that 2018 UMBC team was Ryan Odom, who has some history with UVA. His dad, Dave, was a Terry Holland assistant from 1982-1989.
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Odom was even a ballboy: “Every day, when school got out. Ryan would go back to the house, he’d change into his basketball clothes and would get on his bike, cross over the viaduct on Alderman Road and drive right onto the court,” the elder Odom told the Roanoke Times in 2011.
“He’d park the bike behind the bench, walk over and sit down next to [Jeff Jones] and they’d watch practice and dribble the ball between their legs. [Jeff] talked more about basketball with him than I did.”
Young Ryan was seven when the family moved to Charlottesville, and 12 when they moved down to Winston-Salem when his pops took the Wake Forest job.
In his own basketball journey, Odom played for former UNC walk-on Tony Shaver, who was an excellent coach at a lower level, much better than, say, Matt Doherty. He won 584 games at Hampden-Sidney and William & Mary, and taught Odom to love the running game.
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So not to be too rude, but the biggest influences on Virginia basketball today come from Wake Forest and UNC. But no one is going to complain.
The UMBC shocker is laughed about now, and the UNC/Wake influences don’t matter when your coach debuts with a 30-6 record.
That could be a fluke, but not based on Odom’s history. In his first full-time gig, he was 21-10 at Lenoir-Rhyne. He jumped to UMBC after one season, and had a winning record in every year but one.
At Utah State, Odom was 44-25, and at VCU, he was 52-21.
Overall, he’s 252-133, for a winning percentage of .655. Compare that to Clemson’s Brad Brownell, who checks in at .623, or former Blue Devil Lefty Driesell, who finished his career at .666.
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Hey, we didn’t make that up. You can check it.
Anyway, Odom seems to know what he’s doing, and since he kept his team intact, which almost no one does anymore, he’s in a great position.
Okay, roster time!
Returnees
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Silas Barksdale- 6-9/223/R-FR
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Martin Carrere – 6-9/198/R-SO
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Elijah Gertrude – 6-4/173/R-SO
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Johann Grunloh – 7-0/238/SO
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Chance Mallory – 5-10/186/SO
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Nick Rotter – 6-2/185/JR
Portal
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Christian Harmon- 6-6/209/SR (Arkansas State)
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Kalu Anya 6-8/225/GR (Saint Louis)
Freshmen
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Favour Ibe – 7-1/235/4 star
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Nolan Adekunle – 6-7 (Germany)
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Quincy Watson – 5-11/170
Virginia brings back much more of its roster than the average college basketball team these days. Last year, we got a good idea of what Thijs De Ridder, Johann Grunloh, Sam Lewis, and Chance Mallory could do.
De Ridder started all 36 games, shooting 50.8% from the field and 35.7% from three-point range, and it doesn’t hurt that he’s a big boy, either, because that guy can bang.
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Virginia had a tremendous defensive duo last year with Grunloh and the departed Ugonna Onyenso, who emerged as an absolute shot-blocking monster at the end of the season.
Grunloh wasn’t bad either, though. He had 7 blocks against NCCU, 8 against NC State, and six other games with at least 4 blocks. He was relatively slender last year, and presumably this year, he’s bulked up. He should be troublesome.
Lewis emerged quickly as an offensive force. His stats weren’t all that far off what he produced at Toledo, even though his minutes were down. He shot 45.5%, and 40.3% from behind the line. He also got 3.6 rebounds and 1.4 assists. He was really a useful player for the Wahoos.
Given his height, we weren’t really sure what Chance Mallory could do. Well, turns out he was really good. He didn’t start any games, but he played all 36, averaging 24 mpg.
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He didn’t shoot all that well, at 42.2% overall and 34.5% from deep. He also averaged 3.4 assists, and even though he was a freshman, his team could rely on him to handle the offense. As a sophomore, he’ll take over the point guard full time, and his improvement, which we expect will be considerable, will be key for Virginia.
Silas Barksdale, who was voted the Most Liked To Find His Name In A Nathaniel Hawthorne Novel in high school, redshirted last year, but he’s rugged, and can help at forward or center. He had a terrific career at Woodside High in Newport News, so we’ll see what he can do going forward.
Elijah Gertrude, the last Bennett recruit on the roster, is also back. You may recall that he had a scooter accident after his freshman year and had to have knee surgery. So he sat out the first post-Bennett year, and came back last year. He didn’t get a ton of minutes, but he might be in better shape after working hard since his accident.
The other returnees are walk-ons and GPA boosters (Virginia doesn’t necessarily do this, but a lot of teams over the years have gotten solid students as walk-ons to raise the team’s cumulative GPA), other than Martin Carrere. He signed with VCU when Odom was in Richmond, redshirted, and has put some more weight on his still-thin frame. Is it enough to help? Hard to say, but hopefully so. He’s said to be a solid perimeter sniper, and that always helps.
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For a while, Virginia fans were concerned about the lack of portal poaching, but Odom ultimately reeled in four, three guards and a forward.
Dixon comes over from UC Irvine, and the former Anteater could be a major factor. He averaged 15.9 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 2.5 assists last season, and could certainly start, assuming he can jump from the Big West to the ACC.
Harmon transfers in from Arkansas State, where he averaged 12.8 PPG, 3.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and hit 39% on his three-point attempts. Those two alone should give Virginia good depth at shooting guard.
Vide will likely be the backup point guard. He played at Loyola Marymount last year, and while he may not be great, he should at least be able to back up Mallory. And at 6-6, he gives the Wahoos a very different look.
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Anya played for St. Louis prior to his transfer, and probably benefited from playing alongside Robby Avila, aka Larry Nerd. Avila’s physical talent as minimal, but he deeply understands the game.
There might be reason for it, but Anya’s shooting fell off a cliff in his last year on the court for Saint Louis (he redshirted last season). He did shoot 60.5%, but our guess is that he worked mostly around the basket. His three-point shooting fell from 60% as a freshman to 26.7% as a sophomore, and last year, just 12.5%. He only took about 16 threes, but his foul shooting collapsed too, dropping to a truly awful 31.6%. However, he wa a strong rebounder, at 7.5 per game, and also got 2.5 assists.
As for the freshmen, we wouldn’t expect Quincy Watson to play a lot, but we’ll see.
Adekunle is described as a three-and-D wing, and he can shoot. Playing in Germany’s top league, Adekunle hit 55.2% of his overall shots, and 42.3% of his threes. There’s always room for a guy who can shoot and defend. They’ll probably find a use for him.
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As for Ibe, he is a Nigerian who played high school ball in Maryland. He has a 7-8 wingspan, so he should be an able defender, at a minimum. He’s pretty athletic, runs the court well, and could become a real pain for opponents. Reportedly, he plays well through contact.
Basically, it sounds like Odom has done something like Jon Scheyer has mastered at Duke, and added smart pieces around a returning core.
That core did brilliantly in Odom’s first season, and with Grunloh and Mallory growing into more mature roles, Virginia has a chance to put together a really special season.
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