Cavaliers Now

The Plus/Minus: Virginia Men’s Basketball Bounces Back, Defeats Queens

The Cavaliers get hot from beyond the arc, and stay hot, and down the Queens Royals 94 – 69.
Val Prochaska|
Thijs De Ridder goes for two vs Queens.
Thijs De Ridder goes for two vs Queens. | Virginia Athletics

Plus

A win is a win is a win.  After dropping their first game of the season to Butler over the weekend, Virginia returned to the friendly confines of the JPJ to bully another minnow, in this case, Queens.  Be honest now, you’d never heard of Queens before this year.  And there’s a good reason for that.  Queens, enrollment 1225 undergrad, was a Division II school just two years ago and this is their first year of eligibility at Division I.  Virginia jumped out to a 18 – 5 lead and were never really threatened.

Plus

Viginia was on fire from three-point range, connecting on their first three attempts and four of their first six tries.  For the game, the Hoos shot 15/33, or 45.5%.  Six different players made multiple threes (and they converted at a 60% clip.)

Plus

This is going to be Thijs De Ridder’s team in that he’s the first option.  He scored a game-high 21 points (in 21 minutes,) the fifth time he’s gone over 20 in seven games.  He went 2/3 from deep, though he did struggle bit at the charity stripe.  De Ridder can attack the rim from anywhere:  three times he drove to the rim for the bucket after receiving the ball beyond the arc.

Plus

Johan Grunloh, shooting all of 9% (and yes, you read that correctly) from deep, went 2/2 from three-point range.  He scored 13 points on 4/5 shooting and ten rebounds, seven of the offensive variety.

Plus

Speaking of offensive rebounding, Virginia is the second-best team in the country off the offensive glass, averaging 18.2 offensive rebounds per game.  They had 14 today.

Plus

And while we’re listing national rankings, the Cavaliers are second in the nation in blocked shots with about 8 blocks/game.  Today they were right at that number, blocking eight Queens shots.

Plus

The ball movement was pretty good with 24 assists on 32 made baskets.  This was surely a point of emphasis for the coaching staff as the team had a combined 14 assists in the Northwester and Butler games.   And to drive home how well Virginia moved the ball, the Cavaliers only had eight turnovers for the game.

Plus

61 possessions.  That sounds like peak-Bennett era ball movement, except that these Ryan-Odom Cavs scored 94 points for 1.5 points per possession.  When you have six guys making multiple threes, you can score 94 points in 61 possessions.

Plus

Devin Tillis is rounding into form.  He scored 13 points on 3/4 shooting (2/2 from deep) and going 5/5 from the line.  He was part of a bench unit that scored 37 points and which is second in the ACC in bench points.  Odom has nine guys who, on any given night, can score in double digits.

Minus

Unless something changes, Elijah Gertrude is not going to be one of those guys.  The last three games Gertrude is averaging less than 3 minutes per game.  Gertrude’s best shot is his mid-range, and Odom clearly doesn’t value that.  The team took 60 shots against Queens.  33 were from deep and 16 were listed at the rim (dunks or layups) and my estimate is that there were only about six shots that were mid-range.  Odom doesn’t want the team shooting those kinds of shots.  If Gertrude is going to gain any playing time it is going to have to be because of his on-ball defense on the perimeter and he struggled with that against both Butler and Northwestern.

Minus

Malik Thomas, the newcomer most pundits seemed to think would most easily transition to Power 4 ball, just doesn’t look comfortable to me.  He’s second on the team with 13 ppg (though most of that was from a monster night vs Butler) but he scored just eight points.  He missed all five of his three-pointers and was just 4/6 from the line.  He doesn’t move very well without the ball and when he gets the ball in his hands, he seems very mono-directional.  Surprisingly to me, he did have three assists for the game, but I cannot recall any of them.

Plus

“Stud” Mallory had another fine performance scoring 11 points on the strength of going 3/6 from deep.  He had eight rebounds and handed out four assists.  You know, as a backup.  Every time you look at Mallory, he seems to be open.

Next Up:  Virginia travels to Austin, Texas for the ACC/SEC Challenge on Wednesday, December 3rd.  Game time is 9:15 and the game will be on ESPNU.

Published | Modified
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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