For years, Virginia basketball has been a tough test for North Carolina. The style of basketball they played under Tony Bennett basically directly opposed the style that UNC played under Roy Williams and then Hubert Davis. While the Tar Heels have won their fair share of games against the Cavaliers, the slow pace and stodgy defense could make it difficult for UNC to play at their usual speed, leading to a lot of low-scoring games, and close ones even when Carolina won.
Bennett retired ahead of last season and his long-time assistant Ron Sanchez was let go after a disappointing year as an interim. In his place, UVA brought in Ryan Odom, who—famously—was the coach of UMBC when they beat Virginia in the first-ever #16 over #1 upset. So far, the move has paid off swimmingly, with the Cavaliers sitting at 16-2 and ranked #14 in the country. Now, it’s time for UNC to get their first look at the new look UVA.
One thing to know about Odom’s Virginia is that while they’re different, he hasn’t quite made their playing style look like the Showtime Lakers. Through Tuesday’s games, their Adjusted Tempo rating on KenPom was the 288th fastest in the nation, which is still in the lower third of Division I. Mind you, several of Bennett’s team were quite literally the slowest in the nation according to that metric, but they’re not suddenly playing super fast. (For reference, UNC is 171st in the KenPom Tempo rankings, so they’re not out there running and gunning either.)
Also despite the change, UVA’s defense is still pretty solid, ranking 17th in Adjusted Defense also by KenPom. They’re holding teams to an impressive 38.1% overall field goal percentage, which is one of the best figures in the country. In particular, teams are shooting just 43.6% against the Cavaliers from two. That’s in part due to a strong inside presence. Led by Johann Grünloh with 2.5 per game, UVA averages 6.4 blocks per game and has a couple different bigs with good size they can use to throw at opposing frontcourts.
A notable change for Virginia is on offense, where they’re averaging 84.0 points per game. You have to go back to the 2019 championship team to find a UVA team that put up over 70 per game, and back to 2000-01 to find a team that put up over 80.
Now, Bennett’s best Virginia teams could usually shoot well and at an efficient rate, they just never played fast enough to consistently drop big scores. This year’s team shoots at a pretty solid clip, but also gives itself a lot of second chances. They average 14.2 offensive rebounds per game, which is one of the best marks in D1.
On the offensive side of things, they’re led by forward Thijs De Ridder, who’s good for 16.1 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. He’s one of the keys of the aforementioned offensive rebounding stat, as he averages over two a game just by himself. Malik Thomas and Chance Mallory also average double digit points per game, but UVA features nine different players who go for at least five. That’s a lot of people to have to at least think about tangentially for a UNC team that’s already been struggling on defense lately.
Considering Virginia’s record and season so far, this game in Charlottesville was always going to be a tough test for Carolina, but Odom’s new Cavaliers squad should present some interesting challenges on their own.
