Virginia Men’s Basketball: State of the Program

Last year, then-new coach Ryan Odom burst onto Grounds like a breath of fresh air as the Cavaliers won 30 games for the first time in eight years. After winning the national championship eight years ago, it had a been a slow, inexorable slide for Virginia under Tony Bennett as COVID and four straight NCAA first-round defeats took the bloom off the rose. Bennett, clearly struggling to recruit in the nascent NIL era, would jump ship days before the start of the 2024-2025 season, tarnishing his legacy as he left long-time assistant and friend, Ron Sanchez, with a bare cupboard.

Virginia was due for a re-set and they got it with Ryan Odom, son of Dave Odom who was at Virginia during the Sampson years and then went on to his own success at Wake Forest and South Carolina. After his announcement, Virginia fans were whiplashed at Isaac McKneely (the program guy who replaced Kyle Guy,) Andrew Rohde (the guy growing before our eyes as the guardian of slow, deliberate Bennett-ball,) and Jacob Cofie (the prodigious freshman talent,) entered the transfer portal on back-to-back-to-back days.

It didn’t matter to Odom – he was born for the NIL regime – as he quickly re-secured Chance Mallory’s commitment and brought in six transfers, two recruits from his former school along with a pair of international new-comers. Only a single player, Elijah Gertrude, was held-over from the Bennett days. Roster churn was clearly not an issue for Odom and he quickly got the requisite team and culture building done quickly as the Cavaliers went 11 – 1 in the out-of-conference portion of the schedule before going 15 – 3 in ACC play.

Odom should have won ACC Coach of the Year for the turnaround – Louisville’s Pat Kelsey won in the year before for orchestrating a similar infusion of talent into a moribund program – but we all know that anytime Duke has a remotely successful year, the end-of-season awards are going to Durham.

The bulk of Odom’s transfers last season were seniors, so Malik Thomas, Dallin Hall, Ugonna Onyenso, Jacari White, and Devis Tillis all left after just the one year in Charlottesville. And what of Mallory, Thijs De Ridder, Johann Grunloh, Gertrude, Sam Lewis and the less utilized Martin Carrere and Silas Barksdale? They are all coming back, making Virginia the only Power 4 program in the country with 100% retention. That’s a starting lineup better than what Ron Sanchez had at his disposal.

The Team

Most assessments of the Virginia lineup are going to start with Thijs De Ridder, but I am here to tell you that Chance Mallory is the best player on this team, and it only took about three games last season for him to demonstrate that. Last year as a freshman, Mallory was the catalyst of UVa’s bench mob and this year he is going to have the starting role all to his own. He is being touted nationally as one of the prime breakout players of the year and it is not hard to see why. He is a stout defender, despite standing just 5’ 8” and yet he is fully capable of challenging in the paint. He’s got a reasonable 3-point shot (hitting at a 35% rate,) he had the best assist to turnover ratio in the ACC last year, and get this, he was the fourth best offensive rebounder on the team last year.

Belgian big man Thijs De Ridder has already been selected as the pre-season ACC Player of the Year. He’ll be the focal point of the offense as he can get to the basket multiple ways. De Ridder was considered a borderline second-round pick last year and he came to Charlottesville to improve his draft stock and the fact that he’s back for his second year suggests to me that he didn’t accomplish that goal. He was a pretty good three-point shooter early on but as the ACC slate commenced and the games got harder, his efficiency declined. Now while De Ridder had similar production to say, Clemson’s PJ Hall, De Ridder knows that if he wants to play in the NBA, he’s going to have a reliable three-point shot. He’s been saying in interviews that this a point of emphasis for him, and if he can approach 40% he will be nigh unstoppable for the Cavaliers.

Like De Ridder, Johan Grunloh came to Virginia with the evaluation as a late second-round pick. He, too, is still here. And like De Ridder, he’s got something to prove. Ugonna Onyenso, who was thought of almost as an afterthought to the team Odom assembled, clearly outshown Grunloh in the pivot down the stretch. Grunloh also understood the assignment this offseason – put on some weight and get stronger – and Johan is reporting for duty 20-25 pounds heavier. Grunloh had a stronger track record shooting the three than he put on display for Virginia, but he has a nice-looking stroke.

I like that both De Ridder and Grunloh know that their potential NBA careers are dependent on their shooting the three-ball well. A little personal edge is a good thing.

The fourth starter will be Sam Lewis who connected on 40% of his threes last season. Odom-ball, like it is for much of the sport, whether at the pro or collegiate level, is dependent on taking, and making, threes. Lewis, who had the green light last year, still took fewer threes per game than either Malik Thomas or Jacari White. I would expect that Lewis will increase his usage rate; how well his accuracy travels alongside the greater volume will go a long way to determining whether Virginia is really an Elite-8/ACC champion, or whether the ceiling is Sweet 16/chase Duke for second in the ACC.

So that is four starters, who to be frank, have been penciled in since they all announced that they were coming back for the second years at Charlottesville. Based on the team’s three exhibition games, it would seem that international Nolan Adekunle, a 6’ 7” tweener from Germany is going to get the fifth slot. Adekunle is 24 years old and brings a grown man’s frame to the Cavaliers along with the experience of playing professionally in Germany, again, against grown men. He fits the role of three-and-D wing, shooting 42% from behind the arc and arriving with a reputation as a defensive stopper. If you were to just look at the four starters, all that was missing was that 3-point shooting wing. Adekunle fits the bill perfectly.

At the time that the transfers were being announced, the early speculation was that either Jurian Dixon (following in Devin Tillis’ footsteps from UC Irvine) or Christian Harmon (from Arkansas State) were in the running for the fifth starter slot, or with Adekunle’s signing, being the first guard off the bench. Through those three exhibition games, it appears that Bennett-holdover Elijah Gertrude has won that role. Gertrude, you may recall, was a top 50 recruit who slipped to Virginia following a senior-year ACL tear. Then on Grounds, he had a serious scooter accident and was lost for the season during Ron Sanchez’ lone year, and he played sparingly under Odom. He was always athletic, and that showed through last season playing in spot relief, but his shooting cratered. He reportedly spent the entire offseason working on the shot and he’s been the star of the exhibition season. Against Villanova, he went 5/6 from deep and no one on the team thinks that was an aberration. Gertrude is the guy who is who easy to love, especially in this NIL era of unrestricted free agency: he came because he wanted to learn from Bennett, and he stayed – twice – because he just loves UVa.

After that, we’ve got a bunch of newcomers who will sort themselves out soon enough. Last year, all the preseason hype centered on Malik Thomas, the high-volume, three-level scorer from San Francisco. Thomas was serviceable, he was the second-highest scorer on the team last year, but he didn’t replicate his success with the Dons. I would expect that one of Harmon or Dixon will successfully make the step up to Power 4 basketball and that one will be Devin Tillis. Jan Vide, a 6’ 6” point guard, who thus offers a nice complement to the shorter Mallory, is another professional from Europe, and he has the clearest path to minutes for the Hoos. Freshman Favour Ibe, a seven-footer, and Kalu Anya, from Brown and St Louis, will offer front-court depth for De Ridder and Grunloh.

And what to make of Silas Barksdale and Martin Carrere, Odom’s recruits from ODU that he brought along with him to UVa? Barksdale has size and nifty footwork while the equally tall Carrere is really more of a jumbo guard with some point guard handle. Carrere brings a reputation as a lights-out shooter from distance, but he only took six three-pointers in limited minutes last season. Odom is very comfortable going 10- or 11-deep into his bench, so there should be some playing time for these guys before ACC play begins and Odom settles on his rotations.

The Season Ahead

Or will there be?

Odom, as befits a coach who wants to actually win the ACC and be playing in the final weekend of March, has scheduled a challenging out-of-conference slate for the team. Virginia has a technically neutral game versus the 12th-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks in Washington DC, an away game to College Park to take on former ACC rivals Maryland, Marquette and Xavier in their Thanksgiving tournament, #23 Kentucky for their SEC opponent in the ACC v SEC Challenge, and best of all, fourth-ranked Connecticut at Madison Square Garden.

Whew. That is an audacious lineup and will provide ample opportunity for the Hoos to be battle tested prior to the start of ACC play. On the one hand, Virginia is bringing team continuity and chemistry that most teams cannot hope to attain this early in the season. But on the other, early success matters little when tournament season rolls around. By the time the Cavaliers are playing for the ACC title and NCAA glory, all the other teams will have established their own chemistry, refined their own rotations. Early success can put the bulls-eye squarely on your back, and not every team can live with that pressure.

The Outlook

Virginia sits 9th in the final pre-season poll, joining Duke, Louisville and Miami from the ACC in the rankings. This seems high to me. I like the team, I like Odom’s roster construction, and the notion of Mallory and Gertrude getting extended minutes is heartwarming in an old-school, pre-NIL college-fan kind of way. But talent is what wins, along with the usual caveats of experience and good health, and I don’t see NBA talent on this roster. Odom has said that this team should be faster than last year’s iteration, and that the defense should be better, and those are both positives at this stage in the game. But I think our ceiling is chasing Duke for second in the ACC and reaching the Sweet 16. Which is, you know, pretty darn good. Lots of teams would love to be in that conversation; it is a tribute to Ryan Odom that he has Virginia back to this level in just his second year at the helm.

It should be an interesting season and we here at Cavs on SI will be there every step of the way. Join us for the ride!

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