Back
Virginia Basketball is officially back.
The No. 9 Cavaliers got off to a good start last night with an 89-60 victory over Drexel, a game that UVA led from start to finish. While this is far from the biggest test that Ryan Odom's team is going to face in the non-conference, it was good to see them come out and not struggle vs an inferior opponent.
When looking at how last night played out, what are some overreactions that fans should avoid right now?
Virginia was one of the best three-point shooting teams in the ACC last season, but they struggled last night in their win over Drexel.
Overall, UVA was 34% (10-for-29) last night, and aside from Sam Lewis and Thijs de Ridder, it was a bit of a struggle for everyone when it comes to shooting from the outside.
Johann Grunloh was 0-for-2, Nolan Adekunle was 1-for-3, Christian Harmon was 0-for-2m and Elijah Gertrude was 0-for-4.
It was far from a terrible night, but I think it would be best to wait and see how this offense continues to improve game over game. Every team has a substandard shooting game and that is no different for UVA.
Virginia cannot get away with turning the ball over 14 times in a game against an opponent that has the ability to beat them.
UVA did a great job of forcing turnovers when they were on the defensive end of the court and the fact they had a +7 edge in the turnover margin in the win shows how disruptive they were.
Nearly half of Virginia's turnovers came from lead guard Chance Mallory. Mallory has a chance to be one of the biggest breakout stars in the ACC this season, but he was a bit careless with the ball and that is something that can come back to bite you against a better team.
For now though, it is just one turnover prone game against a bad team.
De Ridder was picked to be the ACC's Preseason player of the year before the season, and he did nothing to show that he won't be able to make a run at that award.
He finished with 24 points on 9-for-15 shooting and also had nine rebounds. He was aggressive on the offensive end of the court and had a great night scoring.
While everyone knows that De Ridder is good, is he ready to be even better than he was a year ago? It would be an overreaction to say yes, but it is on the table in his second season with the program.
Ryan Odom was pleased with the first half aggressiveness from their star player:
"[De Ridder] made some shots," Odom said. "[We] were doing the little things, crashing the glass. I mean, Thijs flew in from the three-point line on the left side and got an offensive rebound. They were having to reset their offense some in terms of taking it out of bounds full court. [We] got several deflections there that weren't steals, but they ended up having to take it out later on."