Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Basketball Pulls Away from Cal

Led by Sam Lewis early and Virginia’s defense late, the Cavaliers eased away with a comfortable 84 – 60 win over Cal.
Val Prochaska|
Malik Thomas
Malik Thomas | Brian Bishop-Imagn Images

Plus

A win is a win is a win.  Cal brought a couple of old friends back to the JPJ in transfer guard Dai Dai Ames and assistant coach Isaiah Wilkins.  Wilkins, if reports are to be believed, wanted to stay in Charlottesville after Ryan Odom was hired, was given a jumbotron trip down memory lane and a warm reception from the JPJ faithful.  For his part, Ames started hot – he did a great job running off screens and getting downhill to the rim – but struggled to find his shot after the 10-minute mark in the first half.

Plus

Virginia, now 13 – 2, is off to it’s best start in 20 years.  Cal can match that, off to their best start in 60 (!) years and both teams answered the opening bell.  The overall team speed of this Cal team is off the charts.  On defense it seemed like they were able to double Virginia’s wings and guards every pass and on offense they were two steps faster through their screens, generating multiple easy back-door looks at the basket. 

Cal was able to maintain that pace for about 13 minutes.  Following a flurry of threes from both teams, Cal’s TT Carr hit a pair of lovely mid-range jumpers to bring the score to 28 – 26 Virginia.  That was Cal’s last gasp.  The Hoos went on a 15 – 7 run, highlighted by Malik Thomas’ three as time was expiring to take a 43 – 33 lead into the locker room.

Plus

Virginia came out firing in the second half with a 14 – 2 start to put the game away.  The highlights were two great Thijs De Ridder feeds to Johan Grunloh, but it was the defense that secured the blowout.  In the first six minutes, Virginia forced Cal to airball a pair of threes back-to-back.  That is demoralizing.  The score was 57 – 35 seven minutes in and it was game over.

Plus

Malik Thomas had another fine game, scoring a game-high 20 points on 4/8 shooting from deep.  Most impressive was his defense, he looked the part of on-ball stopper out there.  The game’s highlight, for me, was when Ames was going up for a mid-range jumper, Thomas came from behind and just grabbed the ball out of Ames’ hands as he was extending.  The stats don’t do Thomas justice.  He’s listed as having zero, but that was a steal, and he had another out on the wing.

Minus

What is about this team throwing skip passes to our bigs?  I’ve seen it five or six times this season and it happened again last night.  Thomas got a steal and brought the ball down the left wing.  Grunloh, running hard, was on the right with only Ames on defense.  It should have been the easiest of alley-oops, except that Thomas threw a (lovely) skip pass to Grunloh, like at his shins.  In slowing his momentum to gather the low ball, it gave Ames times to react and poke the ball out of bounds.  It should have been two points but instead it was Cal’s ball.  For good measure, De Ridder, also running hard and trailing, slammed into Ames for the foul.

Plus

The word was out on Sam Lewis after his 23-point outing vs NC State.  Cal did a great job running him off the three-point line so he responded by attacking the rim.  Once the pump-fake-take-it-to-the-rim action was working for Lewis, he also found time to dish out four assists on the night.

Plus

Virginia had a marginal night shooting the three, going just 9/29.  But because the ball movement was so good, 23 assists on 30 made baskets, it didn’t matter.  Seven Hoos registered assists with Chance Mallory leading the way with seven.

Minus

Virginia is not a good free-throw shooting team, a point which I have made before.  Virginia shot 15/23, or 65%, from the line.  Cal, on the other hand, was 19/22.  That four-point differential is going to bite the Cavaliers hard one of these days.  Even Mallory, the one guy I trust at the line, bricked a free throw.

Plus

Ugonna Onyenso is making the case that he’s the best backup big in the ACC.  He scored 12 points, with a good night (4/5) from the line.  He had a game-high nine rebounds, and four blocks.  As a reminder, Virginia is the best shot-blocking team in the ACC, and the Cavaliers had nine on the night.

Plus

Martin Carrere got his first ACC minutes and had a nice drive to the rim.  He also took a nice three that rimmed out, a three that the whole crowd really wanted him to convert.

Plus

Thijs De Ridder’s stats don’t jump out at you.  He had 12 points, but stunk at the line, and he fouled out.  He did record four assists, including the aforementioned pair to Grunloh.  Oh, and maybe he should have had a fifth, to himself, in this nifty pass off the backboard to himself.

You’ll this occasionally in the pro game but it tends to be more on the open court, trying to make the breakaway Sports Center worthy.  This was in traffic.  And much more consequential. (Note: The announcers did correct themselves that this wasn't a miss when they got around to watching the replay.)

Plus

Virginia’s defense was incredible.  Through the first eight minutes of the second half, Cal, a team also averaging north of 80 points per game, had scored just two points.  Virginia limited Cal to 26% shooting from the floor in the second frame and zero threes (out of ten attempts.)  Cal scored on just 14 of 33 possessions as the Cavaliers had four blocks and four steals.   The easy backdoors that Cal had gotten in the first 12 minutes of the game were taken away by Virginia, this the resulting 24-point blowout.

Up Next:  Virginia hosts Staford on Saturday, January 10th.  Gametime is 2:15pm and you’ll have to make your way to the CW for this one.

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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