As an organization, we’re still kind of navigating the fallout from the end of the CTB era. The success Coach Odom is having so quickly and how well the team is playing on both sides of the ball is helping to mitigate that; but it was always going to be a little messy if we made such a clean break from such a successful era.
When Coach Odom came in, it became clear that he desired a reset, of sorts, in most instances. He wasn’t overly aggressive or enthusiastic about trying to retain most players or coaches. The exact reason why remains subject to speculation. He has said in interviews that he needed to bring in his own coaches because they knew how he did things. You can’t assemble a mostly new roster AND teach a bunch of new coaches how you think about and run things. Additionally, the CTB era was so stylistically different from how Odom wanted to play, perhaps there was some reservation about carrying those players into his system culturally – trying to break well-ingrained habits. Perhaps he felt like the CTB shadow loomed so large that he needed people unattached to that history so that he could instill his own principles.
Whatever the reason, even the most cynical “Ron It Back” advocates or those who felt uncomfortable with so many CTB-era players and coaches leaving at once are having a hard time arguing against the output of those decisions now. Sometimes new coaches just need to be able to do things their way for the best interest of the program; as painful as that might feel.
But even though Odom didn’t aggressively try to retain almost any of our previous guys, there were some he would have been happy to have stay if the price had been right. By all accounts, Isaac McKneely was one of the latter. McKneely opted to leave and travel in conference to Louisville. Now, I don’t want to say he was necessarily given bad advice nor that he made a bad decision. Exact NIL figures and offers are really tricky to suss out and he was very likely given more to become a Cardinal than he would have been to stay a Cavalier. That being said, how much more is unclear. Is the difference worth more than having played his entire career in Charlottesville? Having watched a player that was so beloved by our fans be, correctly, considered a rival in this game was a reality of the era – but it made me think that maybe some perspective was lost in those deciding moments that were mostly being drawn from feelings of disappointment and from feelings about teammates and coaches leaving. Had he stayed, he would have been a cherished four-year player in a time where that is rare. He would have helped to (much more visibly than Eli, but still good for him) bridge the gap between eras from a player’s perspective. There would have been so much goodwill from a fan’s perspective. As it stands? Louisville fans are going to remember him as a one-year mercenary. He’ll just be another former player to them.
Perhaps he would disagree. Perhaps he just really needed a change of scenery… but it feels short-sighted in retrospect. I felt, as did most fans I’ve spoken with, like I really wanted us to beat him in this game (huzzah!), but I also felt a little sad for him that that was his reality now.
Now, don’t get me wrong, for our program, I think it worked out quite well. McKneely is the kind of player who can kind of spring points on you in bunches where you think you’re playing defense and then he shoots a three from the logo, like he did the other night. One where you defend 28 seconds incredibly well and then he makes a horribly difficult shot to make that possession yield maximum points for his team. The problem with his game, though, is that the rest of his play often increases those chances where you need those kinds of shots because of his other limitations. I think he could have been successful under Ryan Odom – probably more successful than he’s been under Pat Kelsey – but I think the players that we brought in to replace him are better fits for what we do because of the totality of their games.
Anyway, just some musings I had while we were going 3-0 against our former players in a wire-to-wire 9-point victory over the #20 team in the country in their building (but, really, isn’t it ours by now?). It could be through my own lens as a UVa fan – but I watched him try SO hard to beat us in this one and I watched him in their press conference after the game….
The broader joy, to me, from this game is that we actually had quite a few of our guys who were a little off; either returning from injury, seemingly dealing with re-injury, or just due to normal fluctuations in quality on a game-by-game basis. Yet, we still came out of the gate firing on a 14-0 run and never looked back. Every time Louisville closed the score to within 5-8 points, someone on our team (often Thomas, Grünloh, Lewis or Hall in this one) would step up and hit a big shot, or make a big play on either end to keep the momentum from swinging fully and wrest back control of the game. There are SO many guys on this team who are capable of carrying water, if needed, which allows us to work through these other things that crop up throughout a season or with unfavorable matchups.
For this game, we’re just going to talk through it all narrative style again, starting with the guys who weren’t fully in form in some ways and then working through what actually kept the quality and momentum in our favor.
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Jacari White returned for this game after missing the previous the previous five due to a broken non-shooting wrist. His explosive mobility and threat as a shooter were immediately on full-display; getting fouled on a three-point attempt and then making 1-3. This was actually down from his average (and we shot a scorching 14-34 for 41% for the game) on the season – but it was an encouraging sign that he looked to be playing similarly. He was dribbling the ball with his left hand, although I thought I detected a little caution in traffic. Perhaps he won’t have quite the same ball handling or control while that’s still on. Either way, his return was a welcome sign.
The issue was that he was not in form off of the ball on the defensive end. There was definite rust. Many of the communication and defensive strides that the team made while he was out, though they started against Maryland while he was still healthy, he was not here to work though. He was just a little slow to identify where he needed to be and where the danger was coming from. In fact, after we went up 14-0, Louisville got going and scored about half of their first 20 points or so against Jacari.
Here was their first bucket of the game and, while we can dismiss it as a banked three, that’s Ryan Conwell (#3) – the leader in made three-pointers in the ACC. Both he and McKneely you cannot lose on the perimeter which would have been a staple of the scouting report. The play starts with Conwell setting a back screen on Ugo which Jacari lingers too long to support – leaving him far behind Conwell as he breaks out past a screen to the three-point line. Of note, Conwell is also a lefty and Jacari picks the wrong direction to bypass the screener – going over the top and allowing the shooter to get into his strong hand.
That one was frustrating given that it was still not the best shot itself (he missed it in, basically) but it was a lapse after we’d been pretty alert on their best shooters and been better about staying attached.
Here, below, he’s guarding McKneely and just kind of loses his alertness for a moment. Early in the clip he’s staying in pretty good off-ball positioning and is right there on iMac’s first catch; but eventually he gets lulled in the lane and is slow to get around the stagger screen.
That shot looks all-too familiar as the kind of look we used to try to create when opponents weren’t as diligent in their scout/game plan.
And then here’s another where Chance Mallory also gets a little confused on recovery as well, but where Jacari is caught with his back to his closeout responsibilities. Mallory collapses down to try to get a steal, but doesn’t have the necessary urgency to get back after he’s unsuccessful – and White gets caught with his eyes in the backfield, so-to-speak, and is completely unaware that McKneely has come open.
That one’s not all on Jacari, but contrasted with some of the defensive possessions we’ll see below and have been seeing for games now, it’s not the level of intensity, awareness, and effort that we’ve grown to expect on that end. There were other looks as well, including one where he failed to identify a cutter down the lane, rotated late, and then fouled in the process; conceding the and-1.
I’m not actually worried about Jacari long-term still – but I do think he’s going to have to work his way back a little and it made sense that he only played the twelve minutes. It’s great to have his energy out there and to have a 9th man we’re comfortable playing to limit some of the fatigue; and we won’t always have such punishing snipers – but there still can’t be such an increase in clean opportunity for our opponents when he plays.
Now, on the flip side of Jacari working back from injury, Devin Tillis seems to be heading in the opposite direction. He banged his injured knee twice against Cal and we went deeper into our bench than normal to spell him then. He just hasn’t looked right since. Not only is he 0-5 from three since then, looking unconfident and missing some he normally makes pretty poorly:
But, more, his mobility – which was already on the slower side – his completely gone. He played just 10 minutes in this game and picked up four fouls while doing so because he couldn’t keep from hand-checking his man because of the disparity in quickness.
And, when he wasn’t fouling, this kind of stuff where he was just blown by and then couldn’t really contest the shot was happening:
It happened a lot in this one considering how little he played. In fact, it looked like Louisville was aware of him and intentionally targeting him in isolation on most of their possessions while he played. It looks like clips from the scrimmages before he got the surgery to clean up his knee; he just seems unsure on it.
If this is where he is at the moment, I’d recommend shutting him down until it heals (assuming it can and will). He’s more detrimental than helpful with that level of shooting and the lack of confidence on offense. In those 10 minutes, he missed one three, turned the ball over on his one post move, grabbed one rebound… while picking up four personals and giving up multiple other buckets in the process. Tillis was a valuable role player before the Cal instances – let it rest until he’s back to that level of stability or, honestly, if it needs a similar type of clean up again to get it right; I’d do that. Hopefully it’s the former and not the latter – but I’d strongly consider both because pressing through and keeping it from recovering is not a viable path forward. He really can’t help until that knee gets right.
I thought Chance Mallory did some nice things creating on the offensive end of the floor despite the fact that his shot has been fairly inconsistent since the Maryland game (still 37% on the season, though).
This was not one of his better defensive performances, though. He got lost in coverage a few times and the ability of their shooters to not feel as bothered by his contest (and the effort he had to give to be able to deter their shots) was a struggle. So much so, that Isaac McKneely, of all people, was able to get past him off of the dribble at times; either using his size to keep Mallory on his hip or, in the clip below, just blowing right by because the closeout was too frantic and out of control:
He also got out-veteran-savvied at times, especially toward the end of the game:
Again, Chance’s defense has been a boon all season and I’m not worried long term – but these kinds of games still represent lessons learned and growing pains. The reality is, Isaac McKneely really shouldn’t be able to put the ball on the floor almost at all around Mallory – his biggest weakness is his quickness and his struggle with guys getting into his pocket and under his dribble.
Finally, Thijs De Ridder played a fantastic defensive game – but his offense wasn’t up to its normal impact or quality. He had just 9 points on 3-10 shooting but, worse, he also turned the ball over five times. Louisville’s quickness and active hands on the ball were bothering him – like you see with him getting stripped here:
And, again, from help here:
He just felt sped up on this end – missing some layups he’d normally make – making unforced passes like this:
So, if all of those guys weren’t really in their best form either due to injury or just some natural challenges, how did we end up controlling this game so convincingly?
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Mostly, Malik Thomas and Johann Grünloh were absolutely awesome throughout and the rest of our starters chipped in on offense (Sam Lewis did more than chip in) while playing fantastic defense. The +/- splits between our starters and our bench players was stark which you’d expect that on a normal team but hasn’t always been true of ours this year.
Grünloh absolutely set the tone on both ends and here’s a great look. He was fantastic protecting the rim – netting 4 blocks and forcing many other misses – to the point where you could see Louisville second-guessing their drives. This is the very beginning of the game, below, and he makes his presence felt by sliding over to deter any shots on a Louisville drive, and then recovering back to his own man, absorbing the back down contact, and rejecting the shot right under the rim. That wasn’t it, though, as he runs the floor with the team, spots up and drills the three for the opening bucket!
Johann was 3-4 from deep in this one, and we’ll see more soon. Quietly, he’s gone from a mid-early season slump where we weren’t really counting on him much from out there to, suddenly, shooting 34.3% from deep on the season. I’ll take that from our Center every time – and it really does make our offense more dangerous when he’s a credible threat out there. I want to call out this specific action too, though. When you push the ball in transition, the opposition’s Center naturally gravitates toward the rim to help on any drives. Having Johann stop at the three-point line should either keep the opposition from helping in transition as effectively OR in this case, punish the sag.
Okay, below you’ll see some nice defense by TDR on the ball – but check out Johann fighting with his man under the hoop and having the awareness to disentangle himself to swat the shot:
The biggest luxury with having him (and Ugo whose block rate is even higher) out there is that if our on ball defenders can just occupy the offensive player’s attention, they often have no chance at also identifying the shot blocker.
Next, very similar as before. This time he snuffs out a shot attempt on a drive, boxes his man after the ensuing shot and takes a tumble on the baseline. Never fear, with Malik Thomas pushing the ball ahead, Grünloh hustles to trail the play and drills another three – this one much sweeter and in rhythm.
My guy was absolutely dominating both sides of the floor early on – this 11-point lead is 6 of his points and the goose egg on the scoreboard is because he’s been posting up a huge “No Entry” sign in the lane.
Let’s advance a little bit in the game before returning to the opening stretch but before going all the way to the end, where we’ll show it all coming together. Grünloh was huge defensively throughout and his shooting bookended the momentum, but his just general hustle and work on the glass was very good as well. It’s not perfect by any stretch and we still give up more offensive rebounds than we’d like – but his rebounding has significantly improved since the Virginia Tech game. We see a nice box out and board to start the clip below which came from the window right after our big run where we started out up 14-0 and then Louisville went on their own 8-0 run to close the gap. The clip ends up with Sam Lewis, who did so many productive little things throughout the game in different ways, getting fouled on a put back attempt – but it’s Grünloh who keeps the play alive not once but twice with his hustle on the glass to allow for the opportunity (also a look at TDR being a little off and rushed offensively).
We’ll circle back to Johann, but his ultra-efficient 16 points (4-8 from the floor, 3-4 from three, 5-6 from the FT line), 7 rebounds, 4 bocks and a steal were heavily impactful throughout. We’ve had monster games from many players over the season – this was his where he stepped up and carried a huge load.
Okay, the other hero performance was from Malik Thomas. Thomas was our most impactful player in this game when you consider both offensive and defensive contributions. It’s really something to behold his progress from earlier in the season. He was pushing the ball in transition but under control and distributing:
Old Malik would have absolutely tried to force contact or taken that fadeaway. Instead, he kept his eyes up and his ability to get deep into the defense makes for more effective kickouts.
Here’s another where he gets the ball farther into the lane than you’d expect and then delivers an intuitive bounce pass over to Sam in the corner again (these were both of Sam’s threes on 7 attempts in this one – Malik was setting him up).
Louisville was always pretty aware to try to help McKneely on defense so Thomas could draw that defender who would have been supposed to close out to Lewis.
Thomas was absolutely clutch from three-point range in this one, though, going a blistering 6-8 from deep in the game and hitting big time shot after big time shot whenever the Cardinals would inch closer. As someone who had dipped under 30% from deep on the season, he’s now up to 33% – and from watching this game, you’d think he was shooting closer to his career average of 38%. I love the confidence that’s returned to him on the offensive end. I think it’s been bolstered by his overall confidence in figuring out how he should be playing with this team. It’s so admirable because it can so often go the other way and players sort of throw their hands up and lose their will. I could digress at the moment because I have a lot of thoughts on this but also do want to see it sustained.
Anyway, this shot below may have gone under-appreciated. It’s the beginning of the second half and this is the first possession. We’d seen our 14-point lead trimmed to 5 and the Cardinals had the entire half to talk about it and convince themselves they were in this game. This possession didn’t really go anywhere – mostly harmless passing around the outside. Hall is at a dead standstill for several beats before firing the pass to the corner (it was a nice pass). Thomas simply clutches up and fires away.
Huge to throw that haymaker immediately after the break from a possession that generated no real advantage.
This is the next one and it’s, again, pushing out a 5-point lead in the second half. This one is deep and smooth.
Notable strategy in that clip above: notice how we intentionally went after McKneely in the ball screen action to generate this kick out. Lewis is not normally the guy we run as our primary ball handler and Hall is on the floor, but McKneely is guarding Lewis. You can see the team wait and TDR to motion Ugo to go up and set the screen. Lewis forces the switch and his probing drive into the lane draws Conwell away and Thomas spotting up from so deep eliminates the close out threat. That’s knowing and trying to attack a scouting report – which I always love to see.
In fact, quick pause from Thomas, the Ugo three from earlier in the game was a result of us intentionally attacking McKneely, too:
Louisville was trying to hide him on whoever they felt like was the least likely to take him off of the bounce. Here, with Mallory and Thomas on the floor, they tried Lewis who we don’t often use to facilitate unless he’s slashing in transition or after we’ve run some offense. So, I love that we did this.
Okay, back to Malik! This is the one where he seizes the moment from a confused switch. Again, Lewis attempts to isolate iMac but this time it doesn’t gain much hay. Instead, he sets a screen for Thomas, which Louisville switches. Seeing that they weren’t on the same page with what they should be doing, though, Thomas just steps into another deep three and absolutely buries it.
That’s such a confident dagger!
Okay, so let’s now take a look at a full two-way possession glimpse into how it was all coming together – our defense leading into big shots. This is a nice look at the versatility of TDR’s defense. We’re switching him on the perimeter so that he’s staying on the ball-handler and it’s deterring them from driving (Cory Alexander, btw, incorrectly saying that it’s a mismatch when TDR is out there – De Ridder can defend guards well). Then we see Sam Lewis comfortably shut down iMac, and then both De Ridder and Lewis getting a contest on a Conwell three. Dallin Hall, who had twelve rebounds in this game including 10 on the defensive end, swoops in for the board. His rebounding has been nothing short of excellent on both ends of the floor ever since our defensive improvement started – averaging 6.2 rebounds per game as a guard in conference play. For reference, Mallory who is correctly lauded for his hustle and rebounding as a guard has averaged 4 per game this season and 2.8 in conference play – so Hall’s improvement in this area as the season has progressed has been huge (he’s still under Mallory at 3.8 on the season). This rebound is strong and in traffic and then he turns the ball up the court immediately. What’s also kind of cool about this is that you can see Hall notice Thomas signaling that he’s not being covered as he crosses half court, but he pushes the ball to the wing to compress the defense and then swings it back. Malik cashes it again!
Alright, that was defense into offense. Here’s another look at the swarming defense we played for most of the game that was augmenting our play. Check some of these rotations out. Initially, Louisville attempts to take Jacari White off of the dribble in the lane. Grünloh has depth, but watch Dallin Hall recognize what’s happening, peel off of his own man who was trying to distract Johann with a screen, and try to make a play on the ball. He doesn’t get the steal, which sends he and Grünloh into recovery/scramble mode; but Malik Thomas is paying attention and switches onto Conwell (Hall’s man) cutting down the lane, allowing Hall to identify and recover back to McKneely. Awesome help defense and awareness – taking a shot at making a play and supporting each other. We’re not done yet, though, as the ball kicks back out and now you see TDR being able to switch 1-4 again. Jacari is a little slow on the recovery back, but De Ridder’s quick hands and leaping deflect the attempted pass back to Louisville. Nice keeping the hands high and alertness/effort. Okay, so Wooley from Louisville (#14 – 6’4″) uses the opportunity to drive baseline and White is sealed off. THREE more of our guys (Thomas, Grünloh, and De Ridder) all collapse on the drive, De Ridder gets the block, and Hall has rotated down into great help position, comes away with the ball.
That is sick defense. It’s Ryan Odom’s system in a nutshell when it’s playing as he wants to – aggressive freelancing to try to create disruption, good rotations in support, switchability on the perimeter, quality help defense, and lots of rim protection. Chef’s kiss! You can still kind of see Jacari not quite being in rhythm on the defensive end in this one – slow to recovery after his switch and not alert on the seal – but the other four guys are so on it that it’s still suffocating.
Alright – last clip of the piece – let’s look at that defense into offense again. This time just pure hustle and athleticism in transition and this was just the most back-breaking play of the game, in my opinion (even thought they still clawed back a little bit after). We missed a three that lead to a runout, but the hustle back is awesome. Not only does Sam Lewis bock the shot with Grünloh right there too, but Hall hustles back to save the ball from going out of bounds to De Ridder who is also back in aware. From there, we get that deadly 4-5 ball screen where TDR draws two defenders and finds Johann for the three ball that puts us back up 10 with 2:30 to play.
Inject all of that into my veins. The effort, hustle, not giving up, the awareness to both run some clock but still being aggressive, the use of our effective 4-5 ball screen in a crucial moment and the confidence of our Center to step up and hit a clutch shot with under three minutes to go in a close game. Yes. Yes, please!
Even though these clips focused on the awesome games of two players – you should have also been able to see a lot of the contributions of others throughout. Lewis also had 15 points and didn’t just to it from outside; he attacked the McKneely mismatch, facilitated, got to the foul line, and played good defense. TDR had a poor offensive game but played great defense and still ended up with 9 points. Ugo was largely not featured but had 3 blocks and secured the frontcourt. Mallory had a rough defensive game AND wasn’t shooting well from outside, but still did a really nice job chipping in with 7 points and facilitating….
Okay, I lied, one more bonus clip because I want to show that Mallory was still doing good stuff on the offensive end and it’s also another good Johann look:
In Conclusion
The main takeaway I hope to impart from this one is that they found a way to put together a high-quality TOTAL performance even though quite a few of their players didn’t have their A-games. That’s the sign of a really good team; and points to a higher ceiling once some health returns and if everyone starts firing at once. In the meantime, the quality of the depth is so good because you never know where you’re going to get the contributions… but there’s a good chance they’re going to be there.
Given form, I believe going to SMU will be a tougher matchup than this one, even. I’ll hope that we can extend the same defense to Boopie Miller that we did to Ebuka Okorie (Boopie is averaging almost 21ppg) and that we’re able to hang with their physical size on the interior. It should be a good test across our roster prior to returning home and naming our basketball court after CTB!
Leggo!
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