Everything From Head Coach Ryan Odom After An 81-62 Win Over North Carolina Central

Virginia head basketball coach Ryan Odom talked to the media after picking up a victory over North Carolina Central. Here is everything he had to say.

Opening Statement:

“Yeah, I thought obviously it was a good game overall. The second half, I thought our guys did a nice job in the first 10 minutes, and then North Carolina Central did a really good job all right down the stretch in the last 10 minutes, you know, putting pressure on us, and we didn't handle it extremely well. Something that we can certainly learn from. Some really really good highlights out there. Johann (Grünloh) really protecting the basket there with seven blocks. You know, Dallin, seven assists. The ball was moving. The offensive rebounding was there again, you know, in the first half, and, you know, I thought the shot making was pretty solid. Excited to win and excited to continue to get better.”

On if offensively this what he wants it to look like…

“I don't know that I would say that. I think their zone bothered us. I would say. I felt like, too many times we were playing outside of three and above, you know, the timeline, and they pushed us out, and we didn't play below them enough. Later in the first half, we began to get a little bit of a rhythm. Then certainly at the beginning of the second half, I thought our guys, you know, did a nice job of beginning to find the gaps to penetrate and because ultimately you have to penetrate, you know, any kind of a zone, whether it's by the pass or, you know, by the bounce. We did a little bit of both. And the guys were unselfish and found one another. When our defense was tight, we were able to rebound and run and get some stuff in transition, and we were for the first 10 minutes of the second half. And then the last 10, we took the foot off the gas a little bit on that side and made some uncharacteristic mistakes. We've got to clean those up in the next couple practices.”

On if the dominance in the paint will change when the bigs don’t have the same physical advantage…

“We'll see. Yeah, we're just at the beginning of this. Yeah, I can't answer that right this second. I think we've got to get a lot better. We know that, and most teams do at this stage. If you stay like you are right now, it's going to be a problem. Our focus is just to continue to play to our strengths. Certainly, they're part of that. Trying to get them the ball inside when we can is going to be important for us. But them making the right play when they get it in there also is important. I think you saw, you know, Tess catch it in the second half. They doubled really quickly, and the ball was out, and then we were able to get a quality look. So we have to use that advantage, you know, that we have at times.”

On full court man-to-man pressure….

“Yeah, it's not to force turnovers. Yeah, it's too much pressure. All right. And guard their ball handlers full court, to take the time, really is what we're trying to do. Occasionally, you'll get some steals just because of it. That's not to say that we don't have, you know, a press where we trap and do some of those types of things. We have different presses when it's a dead ball, all right, and it's a free throw and things like that. We haven't really gotten to that yet. Right now, we're just focusing on getting better at guarding the ball full court and really sustaining pressure, you know, up the court and trying to take as much clock as we can.”

On bringing along Ugonna Onyenso and Johann Grünloh on the defensive end….

“I think that some of it's natural, like they just have that ability to do it. I think the other part of that is just, you know, making sure that they get their body between the ball and the basket. There are a lot of times where, you know, guards are coming down or someone else is coming downhill at you. I think Johann had quite a few tonight where his chest was right there, you know, in front of the offensive player. It's really textbook wall up, and really proud of him for that. And Ugo, you know, he's more of a swatter, you know, he likes to swat the shot, and he's really good at that too. I thought he had an excellent first half from that perspective.”

On Jacari White, Ugonna Onyenso, and Chance Mallory being valuable off the bench…

“Yeah, that was the first time we've done that, and we've practiced it, you know, four or five times at this point, and I thought they did pretty well, you know, in both halves. Certainly, in the first half, you could see two tall guys out there, and you have to monitor when they're in there. Try to do it around a break if you can, so they get a little bit of a rest and they're not having to go two stretches, or at least one of them isn't. “They'll get more comfortable as the year goes on, and so we'll we'll see how that progresses, but certainly something that we wanted to investigate. As it relates to our bench, you know I'm proud of our bench. You know, Chance always comes in and gives us a lift. Elijah does too. Jacari certainly as well, and Ugo has been excellent, you know, off the bench so far. We're confident in those guys, and when you press, all of a sudden, you have that next wave of guys coming in. Hopefully, the team that you're playing keeps some of the same unit in there, and now they're facing a fresh guy. So that's part of the strategy, but, uh, it doesn't always work out that way when you're playing a deep team.”

On Chance Mallory and Dallin Hall playing together…

“Just the ball handling and passing. They both can shoot. They're both point guards and understand what to do out there. We played that lineup with the two bigs a little bit. I think we had a pretty good ball handling, you know, lineup with them just to help them out a little bit. I do like that lineup. It's fast, and we take care of the ball.”