Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: De Ridder Keys Virginia’s Rout of American

Thijs De Ridder bounced back to lead the Cavaliers to a 95 – 51 win over American.
Val Prochaska|
Thijs De Ridder
Thijs De Ridder | Virginia Athletics

Plus

A win is a win is a win, even if it is against an out-classed American team.  How outclassed you say?  Virginia made twice as many field goals --  38 to 19 --  versus American largely on the strength of outscoring the Eagles 56 – 16 in the paint and collecting almost double the rebounds, 45 – 23.

Plus

Thijs De Ridder must have spent the past two days stewing since his dud of a game against Maryland.  De Ridder scored a game high 27 points on 11/15 shooting.  He got started early, scoring eight of Virginia’s first 10 points.  At one point late in the first half, De Ridder had 19 of the Cavalier’s 30 points.  (American had only 16 points at the time.) He bullied American down low, he was active on defense,

and for good measure, De Ridder was 3/4 from deep.  It was a complete performance.

Minus

But…  De Ridder has to prove he can perform similarly when playing stronger competition, you know, now that the ACC season is upon us.  To date, De Ridder has not shown much of a post game.  He’s been most effective coming off a high ball screen and then wheeling down to rim, which means he starting his move facing the basket.  It makes sense, he’s got a great handle for a big man.  In fact, I imagine that in pick-up games, De Ridder fancies himself as something of a point-center, initiating action at the top of the key.  The question is whether De Ridder is going to be able to bully ACC competition?

Minus

Confirming rumors that were swirling since Saturday, Jacari White broke his wrist on THAT dunk and is out of action for 4 – 6 weeks.  The good news is that the offending break is in his non-shooting hand which should allow for a smoother transition when he rejoins the Hoos on the hardwood.

Plus

White’s absence means that one of Malik Thomas, Sam Lewis or Devon Tillis is going to have ramp up their game to compensate for losing White.  On this night it was Thomas who answered the call.  His numbers won’t jump off the page – 11 points on 3/6 shooting including whiffing on all three of his long-range attempts – but he was more aggressive at getting to the rim, drawing six foul shoots along the way.  As announcer Dan Bonner said during the telecast, when one’s shot is not falling, get closer to the rim.  Thomas did that.  It’s clear that he’s been in a funk since coming to Charlottesville and that he’s not producing anywhere near the level he displayed the past couple of years at San Francisco, but his aggressiveness was a welcome sight.

Plus

But the biggest benefactor from White’s absence was Elijah Gertrude who had logged only nine total minutes over Virginia’s previous seven games.  Gertrude played a season-high 15 minutes and stuffed the stat sheet:  11 points on a perfect shooting night.  He was 4/4 from the court, 2/2 from deep and 1/1 from the charity stripe.  He had two rebounds, three assists and a steal.  He came into the game having whiffed on all five of this three-point attempts so I was pleased to see that this was his first attempt of the game, rejecting the three to go baseline to the rim:

He also had this nice drive:

Then, when he was in the groove, Gertrude shot the daggers. 

Plus

Fun stat from the ACC Network crew.  we all know that this is a portal team, but the magnitude of just how many guys are new to Grounds this year is in this stat:  Virginia’s combined minutes played by Cavaliers at their previous schools was 12,727.  Or 318 complete games.  By way of comparison, American’s players had logged a combined seven minutes elsewhere.

Plus

Five different players scored in double figures:  De Ridder, Thomas, Gertrude, Sam Lewis and Chance Mallory.  Because the team is playing full-court defense, and subsequently forcing the opponent to burn more of the clock before even getting into their sets, the team is, even in the Ryan Odom era, playing at 60-possession pace.  Against American, Virginia got 61 possessions.  And yet they scored 95 points for an average of 1.55 per possession.  And that was with White sitting in street clothes and Dallin Hall, who led the team with 20 points against Maryland, scoring just two points.  This Virginia team can come at you from a lot of different angles.

Plus

Dallin Hall, by the second or third summer practice, was given the nickname Captain America, shortened to Cap, by unanimous assent.  Dan Bonner, who was sitting courtside, mentioned twice that it is Hall who was calling out defensive rotations and keeping everyone dialed-in even against out-manned opposition.  Hall only took three shots because he didn’t need to score, not with the night De Ridder was having.  So instead, he dished out seven assists (to zero turnovers) and focused on quarterbacking the defense.

Plus

Dawn Staley was in the house.  Turns out American’s Madden Collins is her god son.  That should be reason enough to get American on the schedule next year.

Next Up:  The ACC schedule kicks off with a bang on New Year’s Eve as Virginia travels to Blacksburg to take on the Hokies.  Game time is 2:00pm and the game will be streamed on the ACC Network.

Published
Val Prochaska
VAL PROCHASKA

Val graduated from the University of Virginia in the last millennium, back when writing one's senior thesis by hand was still a thing. He is a lifelong fan of the ACC, having chosen the Tobacco Road conference ahead of the Big East. Again, when that was still a thing. Val has covered Virginia men's basketball for nine years, first with HoosPlace and then with StreakingTheLawn, before joining us here at Virginia Cavaliers on SI in August of 2023, continuing to cover UVA men's basketball and also writing about women's soccer and women's basketball.

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