Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Basketball Unleashes Hoonami on Georgia Tech

Thijs De Ridder and Malik Thomas came roaring out of the gate as Virginia opened up a 34-point 1st half lead en route to a 94 – 68 win.
Val Prochaska|
Jacari White
Jacari White | Brett Davis-Imagn Images

Plus

Wow.  To say that this game was a blowout doesn’t do justice to blowouts.  My buddy Bill, Official Friend of Cavs on SI©, and I were texting during the game and he called the game a Cavalanche.  I opined that Cavalanche was an understatement and he came back that Georgia Tech had been hit by a Category II Hoonami.  I can live with that.

Plus

In Virginia’s last four games, two of them squeakers, Thijs De Ridder averaged eight points on 34% shooting (and going 1/10 from deep.) Clearly, De Ridder wanted to make amends and he was a man on a mission, finishing with 22 points on 9/13 shooting.  He had three steals.  Three times he simply exploded in the open court to finish at the rim with authority.

De Ridder's first steal of the night gave the Hoos a 34 – 7 lead (and yes, you read that right.)  At the time, De Ridder himself had almost doubled up the entire Georgia Tech team, 13 – 7.

Minus

Injuries suck.  Georgia Tech was without 6’ 10” Mo Sylla and 7’ Peyton Marshall so the game wasn’t a fair fight.  Baye Ndongo, who has troubled Virginia in the past, picked up three stupid fouls and was an afterthought for much of the game.  De Ridder, Johan Grunloh and Uganna Onyenso bullied Georgia Tech on the glass with a 51 – 34 advantage, including a 20 – 10 differential on the offensive boards.  Tech had no answer for Virginia’s strength underneath.

Plus

Malik Thomas, who has also been struggling of late – 6/28 from beyond the arc the last six games – came out as hot as De Ridder.  He was a perfect 3/3 from three-point range in the first half and would finish with 17 points on a 5/8 night from deep.  Now, some of these numbers look bad because Thomas is usually the sacrificial lamb that the team shuffles the ball off to very late in the clock and it’s as if Thomas has to take one for the team.  The opening basket of the game fit this pattern perfectly as Dallin Hall spurned his own three-point chance to give the ball to a flat-footed Thomas who splashed in a three as the horn was sounding.  That Thomas connected was an omen of the night Virginia was going to enjoy.

Plus

Virginia averages a little over 10 made threes a game, and the team met that in the first half going 10/18 from deep.  Shooting 55%, at that volume is how you open up a 59 – 27 halftime lead.  Sure, the team cooled off in the second half (4/19) but it didn’t matter, the game was already won.  Seven different Hoos connected on a three.  In the first half, Virginia had runs on 9 – 0, 10 – 0 and 9 – 0.

Plus

Virginia cooled off in the second half because, well, because shooting 56% from the floor and 55% from three is simply unsustainable.  The game got sloppy the last 10 minutes or so and Tech actually outscored Virginia in the second.  I am sure that there are fans who will look at that 30+ halftime lead and be disappointed that Virginia didn’t double that in the second half, but sport just doesn’t work that way.  It’s hard to keep the same focus and intensity when you leading big in a blowout as you had when you were fighting to get that lead.  Execution falls off, it’s inevitable.  Now, Virginia got run off the court in the second half against UNC, but that was because Virginia didn’t bring the hustle coming out of the locker room.  Even as Virginia got sloppier for the last 10 minutes, the Cavaliers never slowed down as evidenced by this Sam Lewis slam:

Oh heck, let's just showcase Dallin Hall's explosiveness as well (since he has so few dunks:)

Hall had a sneaky good game as well: 12 points, 2/3 from deep and 10 assists to just one turnover. For the season, Hall is leading the ACC in assist-to-turnover ratio.

Minus

If I had to pick a team for an intra-squad 5v5 match, my first choice would be Chance Mallory.  He’s the best player on this team, but he’s hitting the freshman wall.  He’s struggled at the free throw line, but he’s also not thrown a good alley oop in I don’t know how many games.  He had two bad lobs on this night that led to Virginia turnovers.

Plus

Jacari White had a middling night: 2/8 for five points, but he did have four boards and a pair of assists.  But the brace is off his hand and his handle looked much improved.

In fact, while I’m here, I really wish that women’s coach Amaka Agugua-Hamilton would look at this play:

This is how you run the break.  White receives the first pass while still in the backcourt and he immediately fires the ball up to Mallory who is ready to shoot the three.  Every Virginia rebound, Kymora Johnson drops back (like she would if she were playing with high school caliber ballplayers) and then she dribbles the ball across mid-court.  It would be so nice if Johnson received a ball where Mallory does; she would be so much more deadly as a player.

Plus

Virginia has now won seven in a row, and with Clemson having fallen off a cliff (they’ve now lost three in a row) the Hoos are firmly slotted second in the standings with the chance to play Duke for the ACC regular season crown.  It’s nice to know that a year after Tony Bennett’s departure, the Hoos seem to have connected with a second-consecutive home-run hire in Ryan Odom.

Next Up:  Virginia hosts Miami, currently third in the table, this Saturday, February 21st, at 2:00pm.  The game, as befits the match-up, is on ESPN.

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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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