Everything Ryan Odom Said After the Virginia Cavaliers win Over Boston College

Here's what Ryan Odom had to say after the Virginia Cavaliers defeated Boston College 73-66 this afternoon.

Virginia Cavaliers guard Sam Lewis | Eric Canha-Imagn Images

After defeating the Boston College Eagles this afternoon by a score of 73-66, the Virginia Cavaliers brought their overall record up to 18-3 and 7-2 in conference play. UVA had yet another slow start, but they pulled ahead just in time to seal the victory. Following the game, head coach Ryan Odom sat down for a brief press conference and discussed his thoughts on Virginia's performance. Here's everything he had to say.

Opening Statement...

"A ton of respect for Coach Grant and their team. Just really impressed by watching them on film. The togetherness that they play with, the energy that they have on both sides of the ball. Their defense is very similar numbers wise to ours, and they're tough to score on. They really are, and they have guards that can get to the basket, bigs, you know, that have some skill inside and outside. They gave us everything certainly that we could handle today. Just really proud of the guys. Gritty effort overall. To come away on this week with two wins on the road is really, really difficult and [I’m] proud of the execution down the stretch."

On what UVA talked about when it was down at halftime...

"We were two for 16, you know, from three, and so, one part of the conversation was let's make sure that we're taking the right threes. Let's not just shoot threes to shoot threes, when potentially there might be some drives to the basket, and I think in the second half, the guys did a nice job of attacking and certainly got fouled some, but also got some baskets going to the rim. We limited how many threes we took overall. And then defensively, just being better at the point of the screen. We were getting beaten at the point of the screen way too easily in the first half, and we needed a tougher effort there from our guards, and then also our bigs."

On getting Thijs De Ridder to the basket...

"Yeah, there's no question about it. When teams, you know, play out and you sort of lock out, they're really good at at guarding the three and so we wanted to make sure that our guys got to the basket and you can create contact sometimes you can get all the way there, and certainly they have a really good shot blocker back there, but there were times where we're able to get all the way in."

On the 28 bench points and if it's a common theme...

"Yeah, it's just whatever it takes each game. It tells us what we need to do. We have good players who start. We have good players who come off the bench. You know, Dallin Hall is a great example of that. Not one of his better overall games, and sat for a good amount of it in the second half. But went back in there and made some huge plays down the stretch and certainly that we needed him to. Chance coming off the bench, he's pretty consistent, you know, with this play. Ugo was great off the bench today. Devin, I thought, had really good minutes as well. Jacari, he was more like himself. That was the first time you know he's played like himself since the injury."

On how UVA handled the schedule...

"Yeah, I mean, it's hard to complain about winning that many games on the road. It's not easy to win on the road. It doesn't matter what league you're in. It's difficult, and so we can't pat ourselves on the back—there's more road games to come. We've got to be good at home, and it's a tough conference this year. You know, it's much improved from a year ago, and so we've got to be ready every game."

On Jayden Hastings and getting him into foul trouble...

"We never really go into a game saying we want to get this person in foul trouble. I think it's more about, like, how do we play against this person? And if you go in there unaware that he's really good at blocking shots, then you're probably going to get what you deserve, and that's him blocking your shot. And so I thought our guys did a nice job of when they did see him, you know, faking. There were a couple of possessions where they switched Thijs, switched him on to Thijs after Thijs scored a couple of baskets. Probably like to have some of those back where Thijs might have created for somebody else, but he's really good at it and certainly a weapon. And we have two of our own, you know, and Johann and Ugo as well. So our guys are used to playing against guys like that in practice."