Beating Tech is always a nice way to close a season, especially a 27-4 one. With the regular season in the rearview mirror and the ACC Tournament already underway as of this writing, it seems fitting to say what a fun and resounding success year one of the Ryan Odom tenure was. Of course, every single game moving forward will disproportionately shape how it’s discussed and viewed moving forward, but I still think it’s worth the time calling out how we got here. Picked to finish #5 in the conference and dramatically under the radar within the coaching hire cycle, we’re now staring a first round conference tournament bye and #2 seed squarely in the face along with a top 10 national ranking.
Frankly, it’s been glorious to have so much success in year one and it’s setting a fantastic tone for the program in the near future! It’s a good opportunity to talk about a few of the positive developments headed into the postseason along with a few things that are giving at least some pause for concern. That being said, these things can turn on a dime and you never know who is going to step up and rise to the occasion in March.
Let’s go ahead and jump right into it. In this, I’m going to be focusing a little more on recent trending i.e. some players whose form either shifted significantly in this game or who built on some steady recent play. So, for example, I’m not going to spend much time on Thijs De Ridder, who continues to play well and had another good game (and congratulations on his First Team All-ACC award – I still can’t believe anyone would say he’s not our most important player this season – seems straightforward). I’m also not featuring Grünloh who continues to be in good form as well, nor Jacari White who continues to not shoot as scorchingly as he has – but also is still chipping in with some explosive plays fairly regularly. Those are the relatively static pieces at the moment – most of which I’m happy with and ideally, White will have a game or two this postseason where he just blows up.
Sam Lewis and Malik Thomas Spark The Energy
No one on the team needed a positive stepping-stone more than Sam Lewis and, while Malik Thomas responded pretty well from the Duke performance, he was still kind of lurking with regard to which way he was going to go. I’m pleased to say that both played well in this game, scoring 15 and 16 points respectively on 50% shooting from both the field and three-point line for Lewis and 67% shooting from the field and 50% from three for Thomas.
While it was fantastic to have them both shooting efficiently again, which sustained for most of the game, what thrilled me was that it was their collective energy that most fueled our fast start jumping out to that 22-5 advantage that the Hokies eventually closed but ran out of steam after doing so. Lewis, who had seemingly just lacked energy the previous two games, was in completely different form and Thomas was right there with him with a spring in his step similar to what we saw when he was playing his best basketball.
Here’s a great look on the very first play of the game. Remember, both didn’t hit a shot from the floor and looked overwhelmed against Duke and, while Thomas bounced back with a solid game at Wake, both sorely needed some positive reinforcement. Here, below, Lewis actually misses his first shot of the game again after working his way to a midrange jumper. He doesn’t hang his head or give off bad body language, though, and instead lurks and strips the ball back, throws a nice cross-court pass, and Thomas sees his first three-point attempt go through the hoop.
I was immediately heartened when I saw that play because of who was making it and the mentality that went into getting that result.
Then, we’ve seen better defense from Thomas as the season has progressed and he’s normally been good at getting to loose balls and rebounding, but we haven’t seen these kinds of explosive defensive plays in a while. I loved this one, below, not just because it created a run out which he finished with strength and acrobatics, but because it required anticipation and awareness – not always his strengths this year – to execute. Notice, he’s switched onto the screener here, but anticipates the pass and jumps out on it to intercept before it gets to Lewis’s cover:
These are energy kinds of plays that happen when a player is engaged – a great sign for us from both!
Here’s another one that wasn’t the cleanest play from Sam, either, and to be honest he had some much slicker and prettier drives later in the contest, but I included this one because it illustrates how he was out there fighting. He crashes for the offensive rebound, loses control but scraps for it back, and then goes up and finishes, undeterred:
The ultimate confidence move from Thomas came next and I thought this was a big deal from him. Tech had just scored six-straight to trim our 17-point lead. We run a nice weave action up top to get into a pick and roll with Johann and Dallin, but Hall’s pass to White in the corner comes in a little hot and off the mark. This leaves Jacari with little time to make something happen. Watch Malik. He looks like he’s getting out of the way as the shot clock runs down, which he is, but he spots up on the handle of the sabre and is still alert in-so doing. This allows him to fire away on the kick-out because there’s so much distance between he and his man, who is helping on White’s two-man game. It’s a deep shot and not one you’d really want him hunting early in a shot clock – but what a weapon to be able to go to in order to demand spacing and to punish it when we are limited on time.
Malik was absolutely locked in early in this one and I love that his confidence has just remained resilient all season whenever he hits an obstacle. Given where the offensive expectations were for him prior to the season, it’s easy to forget that he’s still our second-leading scorer despite playing fewer minutes than five other guys on the roster. I like Thomas having a positive game heading right into the tournament and, in any game we play from here, he’s still got the ability to get hot for us while not it not being that much of a detriment if he’s not on.
Okay and then here’s a last look at Lewis playing with some more confidence. This time, he has the wherewithal to tip the ball in the air to himself over the opposition – just feeling them on his back. I also like that, even though it didn’t go, he just tries to straight yam this on Tobi Lawal (#1) and his 50-inch vertical. The moxie! Plus, it created a positive play because TDR could just clean up the easy bucket.
If you had asked me prior to this game who I’d like to see get going to improve their form, I’d have definitely led with Sam and probably would have followed with Malik. That answer is different now, but it’s encouraging that this is how both kicked things off (and both chipped in throughout the game, too, as we’ll see in some of the clips below).
Dallin Hall, Unsung Hero
There were many, throughout the season, calling for Dallin Hall to come off of the bench behind Chance Mallory (just as there were calling for Ugo to start over Grünloh). This game (and several others before it, to be fair) is why you don’t do that. Not because Mallory hasn’t been great throughout the season, he has. Not because he hasn’t outplayed Hall much of the time and provided a level of spark that’s been invaluable to the team, he has. BUT, Hall has major conference basketball experience, is 23 years old, relatively unflappable, has also played good basketball all season long, and still plays well with Mallory when both are playing well. If you’re often closing the game with both, which we have this season, and Mallory’s been so effective as a change-of-pace after the first four minutes of a game against backups or more tired opponents, which he has… then why change that?
There’s not really a great answer to that question, in my opinion, but one of the valuable elements to keeping it like it was is that you remove some of the pressure from Mallory who still IS a Freshman. It’s taken the majority of the year, but he has started to hit the “Freshman wall” which we saw Johann work through already. It’s natural. In fact, the reason that expression exists is because it is such an adjustment for first year players – the slog of a full season of over 30 games at this point. The travel. The constant banging of bodies with 22+ year-olds who have more experience themselves and who have spent a few more years in the collegiate weight and conditioning programs. The fact that you now have a full regular season of college tape on you and good coaches are scouting your tendencies when you were a (relative) unknown to start the season. We’re going to talk about Chance a little later in hopes that he’s able to shake off the funk, but for now we’re talking about Hall.
Having kept him out there in a leadership position all season means that you don’t have to turn to him off of the bench now. Additionally, there’s less pressure on Mallory to feel like so much is riding on him to get right. Hall has been repaying Odom’s trust in big moments while still leading the ACC in assist-to-turnover ratio throughout the year. In this game specifically, not only did he have 9 assists and moments of incredibly important defense, but three of those came on three of the next four baskets after the Hokies tied the game up at 51 in the second half. He just, so often, plays solid mistake-limited basketball where he gets the ball to the right places. Let’s take a look!
Okay, the first clip we’re going to look at piggy-backs off of the section above, as it’s a Sam Lewis three which is the first he’d made since the N.C. State game. But, importantly, he gets the most wide-open look and that’s created by Hall’s court vision and then that dart he throws across.
When people talk about command of an offense – this is often what they mean. Dallin takes the kick out from TDR demanding a double team, understands that someone should be open, and then punishes the defense incredibly efficiently by driving the close out and drawing the defense to him prior to whipping that pass to the corner.
Speaking of control, this next clip is a clinic in running the pick and roll, holding the defense, having the patience to let the slip screen from TDR develop, and then the execution of that low bounce pass to split the defenders.
It’s winning basketball and I don’t say that as the whole cliche when one dude is on a winning team but isn’t really carrying the weight but people cite the record. This is just efficient and in control and presses an advantage. He pushes the ball in transition but doesn’t rush. He sets up the two-man game on an imbalanced floor. He methodically baits both defenders and then he dissects their defense with his pass.
Most of the focus, throughout this piece really, is going to be on offense with few exceptions, but this is one because he’s also modeling the energy with which all of our guys need to be playing right now. The one thing that was most severely lacking in that Wake game was energy. Sometimes energy was lacking in this one, especially as our lead started to dissipate. But here’s a look at Dallin, closing down the half guarding Tech’s Ben Hammond (#3) – their ultra-quick scoring PG – pinching him in a double team with Grünloh, fighting for the initial loose ball before diving on the floor to tip it out for a nicely converted fast break the other way.
Bringing the energy is Mallory’s bread and butter – but Dallin can also set that example and that kind of hustle directly contributed to killing a drive and stringing it directly into two the other way.
Okay, now we’re moving on to the second half and the stretch in question. We led the Hokies by 16 points at the half and, they started the second half on absolute fire. Our defense wasn’t amazing at times, but they also hit some difficult shots… and ultimately erased the lead entirely at 51-51 on a 26-10 run with just under 11 minutes to play in the game. The momentum was entirely there’s at this point and we could have easily let that snowball keep building.
Instead, we went on a 8-0 run of our own to push the game back out to 59-51 and never conceded the lead from there. Practically speaking, this was the most important and deciding stretch of the game and Hall kept calm and assisted on three of these four buckets. First, the alertness to save this ball that slips out of Sam Lewis’s hands and then he sets up a nice drive to the baseline, draws the defense again, and dishes a nice lob to Ugo:
The next defensive play, he turns in this possession on Avdalas (#17) where he consistently gets over screens, stays pressed to him when he’s clearly trying to pound the ball and make something happen, and forces Nikolas to abandon the attempt. From there, good defense from TDR on Lawal and then Lewis gets a nice contest on a three, forcing a short miss and then swoops in for the rebound as well.
I thought it was worth calling out the collective team defensive effort on that one within the Hall lens because, for one, he did really well on the ball there and showcased his versatility in who he can defend, but also because they all ramped their intensity up in the big moment.
Next, Hall comes right back down the floor, and executes this pretty set. He passes it to Lewis on the wing, cuts through to the corner and takes the pass back. Meanwhile, Sam curls around and takes a back screen from Ugo and Hall hits him with a pretty backdoor pass:
Neat play design – they ran this for Lewis a couple of times in this game – but so often when guys come open on backdoor cuts players won’t actually throw the pass because it requires timing and precision. This is well done on both from Dallin.
Then, after Malik Thomas wriggled his way to a midrange jumper in the lane, we get this play, below. First, notice the set – it’s different, it’s horns with Devin Tillis holding the ball. Lewis runs an Iverson cut and then curls around Onyenso back door. This play is different than the play above but still includes the back door to Lewis action. This version was something that we were running successfully earlier in the season against the Cals and Stanfords of the ACC, but Tech is wise to it and drops Ugo’s defender. The continuation, then, is a flare screen to Hall who again drives baseline on Hammond (#3), draws the help defense, but this time Thomas cuts down the lane and Hall hits him with a quick pass for the finish at the rim:
I love that cut from Malik but, again, I love the control and execution from Hall. He uses his size advantage to get the ball over Hammond, and he just disguises it so well and gets it out so quickly that there isn’t much time for the two defenders on him to react to the ball motion.
Hall absolutely took over this game during the most important stretch without scoring a single point. His footprints were everywhere. Marry this kind of game control with his recent trend of improved outside shooting (and willingness to pull up off the bounce – his lone attempt in this game was a difficult one that went in and out), and I’m really liking where his game is right now.
Ugonna Onyenso
I saved Ugo for last because he was the player of the game and was another one of the players who I thought could use a bounce-back. He’d been playing timid since the Duke game on both ends, as I highlighted… but I guess he just decided to change that in this one! In fact, he tied Thomas with the scoring lead at 16 points on 5-7 shooting and 2-3 from three(!) – 4-4 from the charity stripe. He followed that up with three more blocks, finishing with 80 on the year, pacing Johann by 7. Frankly, he was awesome, and played without hesitation for the first time in a week or two. Throughout the season, it felt like one of our Centers was always playing well, but often not both in the same game at the same time. Knocking on wood, it feels like we’re trending toward both playing well at the same time finally. So, let’s take a look.
The first and most obvious thing, and the one that made Mike Young question himself was his outside shooting. Earlier in the season, Ugo turned some heads with his three-point shooting but that had largely cooled off in later ACC play to the point where he’d shoot the occasional wide-open one but they weren’t normally going in and he wasn’t really looking for the shot. That changed in this one and Odom called it out in the press conference that he started shooting like he does in practice, stepping into it without hesitation. The difference was visible in that he was ready and willing as soon as the opportunity presented itself and not just after the seas parted. Here is his first, below, and we see it come after he runs several screens for Mallory. Eventually, the ball moves to Tillis and this time Ugo slips it. On the return pass, he immediately steps into the shot.
That wasn’t a slow or lazy contest there – Tech contested this shot as best they could… but the readiness of Ugo to shoot made all of the difference.
This is the one that came at the end of the game in a huge moment, just up four with under two minutes to play. Notice it’s Hall that sets this up again. He notices how VT is defending it the first time and then runs it back to the center to get the look. Ugo, again, doesn’t hesitate and takes what’s there over the close out:
This is a great example of how we’re so team focused on the offensive end. When it gets to crunch time, you don’t see us abandoning our offensive concepts to play isolation with our best player (that often, sometimes we will do that with TDR but that’s also a part of our scheme). We’re still going to run our offense and take the cleanest look that comes out of it. It’s fantastic that Ugo is both skilled enough to make this shot and confident enough to take it again.
His impact didn’t stop there, though, as he was available as a lob threat again (and we did a better job, in general, of hitting him rather than throwing it well over his head).
That was set up through our weave concept again, which has done a nice job, among other things, of allowing us to isolate a pick and roll without much help coming.
This next clip, though, is exactly what I’ve been talking about the past two games. I’ve called out recently that Onyenso has been getting the ball either right near or moving toward the basket and hasn’t been playing aggressively enough in those situations. With his length, those are good shots, especially when he’s moving at the rim, it’s hard for the opposition not to foul when defending him or concede a bucket. Instead, though, he’s been stopping himself short and kicking the ball out to reset the offense. Not here. In this game, we got to see him go at the rim again, as demonstrated (after this clip also showing him still offering excellent rim protection) in transition. After a change of direction screen, Ugo slips and gets a nice pass while moving toward the rim. Lawal comes over to help but, rather than seeing his presence and resetting the offense, Ugo continues his momentum, gives a pump fake, and finishes easily at the rim.
That’s what I’m talking about re: getting the points that are there at the rim! Honestly, I’d like to see him be even more aggressive and try to dunk it on some help defender sometime but, given that Lawal jumped over Grünloh in this game, I don’t mind baiting the block attempt and taking the easy one either.
I showed one of his blocks above, but I just wanted to close with this clip which could go underappreciated but shows the disruption he has while he’s in there (and, oh my gosh, give me all of him talking about seeing the fear in the opposition’s eyes when they see him in there). Ben Hammond (#3) has absolutely roasted us this season. He averages 13 points per game and went for 21 in this one after going for 30 in the first contest. He’s a bad matchup for us defensively because he’s got quickness on Hall and size on Mallory (without giving up quickness to him, either) and he’s good at finishing in a variety of ways in the lane – often avoiding our rim protection. Here, though, even though he sets up the ball screen on Mallory well and gets into the lane, he underestimates Ugo’s outward reach and Onyenso strips the ball on the way up, nullifying the play and forcing Tech to reset. They end up trying a skip pass to the corner which misses badly.
I show just a couple of the defensive clips because, although I’d say Ugo was also not at his best there in the past two games, that has been a consistent strength of his all year. The improved intention on offense, though, that would be significant! Having both of our Centers as scoring threats within the same game in addition to their defense would be great, as will having their different styles. Johann is still more finesse on that end while Onyenso provides more explosive potential and more strength in there as well. Mix and matching them offers a lot of options.
Alright, well, we’ve got to do it, but it’s time to talk about a couple of question marks.
Devin Tillis
The first is a very short section because I don’t think there’s much to be done about this aside from playing TDR more where possible and he’s not necessarily in poor form. In fact, after the play I’m going to use to illustrate my point, he came right back down the floor and his this three without any hesitation:
At 38% on the year from outside, you kind of have to hope that Tillis contributes in this way when he’s out there and that you can lean into offense to outpace the defense during those moments.
Virginia was a player-worst -8 in the 15 minutes Tillis was on the court, though. He’s now the lowest-rated payer in Evan Miya’s BPR (not by that much). It comes from taking one of our best defenders off of the floor for our worst, positionally, and still conceding some on the offensive end because, while his outside shot is superior to De Ridder’s, the playmaking, finishing, and offensive rebounding all take a big hit when Thijs isn’t on the floor. Frankly, it’s just the biggest positional drop off, by far, and really the only one on the roster where you have to be concerned when the starter is on the bench. As a result, I always feel antsy when Tillis who, correctly, isn’t being used much at SF these days, is out there. It feels much more volatile and fortunate when things break our way.
I’m just going to give one, small, example from this game in clip form to illustrate the point, but I think it’s one that makes it quite well. De Ridder is excellent at switching onto virtually any defensive matchup, including on the perimeter. We’ve seen this time and time again and you can look at many of my pieces throughout the year if you want more information on that. He’s long, strong, uses his body well positionally, and moves his feet incredibly well – allowing him to bang with players like Caleb Wilson or to stay in front of players like Tre Donaldson. This allows us to switch 1-4 and it also allows us to run our aggressive offensive rebounding schemes and our full court press after makes because all of our non-Centers typically just take who is closest after the transition. All throughout this game, especially early, De Ridder would get matched up with Hammond in these kinds of transitional periods and Hammond would almost never test him – routing the offense through someone else or running a screen to get a switch back onto a guard.
Here, though, Tillis is on the floor instead of De Ridder. Mallory is picking up full court, but when Hammond takes the ball from Hansberry (#13) it forces a full-court switch with Devin now guarding Hammond. If this was TDR, no big deal, we would just run our defense like this, but Tillis knows this is a mismatch and tries to direct Chance to switch back onto Hammond while giving a deep buffer so as not to get blown by. Mallory complies, but Tillis doesn’t switch back fast enough on Hansberry, and Hammond simply finds him for the easy, and open, driving lane.
Tech had three points at that juncture in the game, a whopping almost seven minutes into play. Their only other bucket was a pretty difficult Hammond three. This was the first easy thing they got all game and it helped to give them confidence/shift the momentum away from the blow out. They’d go on to score on their next four consecutive possessions with Tillis on the floor before we subbed him out. Of course, we’re going to concede some points, throughout a game, but the flood gates opening like that once we sit De Ridder is deeply concerning, especially as we’ve seen it pretty consistently against high level PFs throughout the season. It’s also the ease of this bucket, above. They didn’t really have to work to earn it – we gifted it to them because our scheme lends to switching but Tillis didn’t trust his ability to defend that switch. Perhaps he was correct – but allowing an easy one when the defense has been SO stingy isn’t worth it – he should have tried knowing that there was help behind him.
We ended up winning this game pretty narrowly, although it was never in that much doubt after we pushed the lead out to 59-51. De Ridder played only 26 minutes despite the fact that he had ZERO personal fouls. I know that the narrative is still there, and he got a second foul early in the Duke game, but that’s how many he finished with. Over his past ten games, only once has he gotten even three fouls (his most during that stretch against N.C. State). Long gone are the days when he’s been getting into silly foul trouble, which is great! We’re going to want to give him some rest, I understand, because tournament basketball is a slog… but Virginia Tech had no life in this game until they generated some confidence playing against our defense with Tillis on the floor. My main point is this – now that every game is basically life or death, we need to be willing to play TDR significantly more minutes. Trust him not to foul even if he gets a couple early. Treat it as a situation where you just want to take him out in spurts to get him rest, but that it’s important to have him out there as much as possible. I love Devin Tillis as a locker room presence and think he does enough things well enough (shooting and passing) and smart enough to offer a decent change of pace for short stints… but I don’t think we can afford to let opposing teams adjust to him being out there in the postseason. It’s got to be in and out like a covert mission. Get De Ridder up there in the 32, 33, 34-minute range.
Ride your First Team All-ACC player in the postseason.
Chance Mallory
Alright, time to just rip off the band-aid. Mallory hasn’t been the player we’ve seen throughout the season over the past few games. I’m not actually that worried about it compared to situations where De Ridder sits because he’s been one of our better players all season and because Hall is also playing well. I also just get the sense that Chance is a straight gamer and will show up for these games. But I’m not… not worried about it, either.
It’s true that his outside shot hasn’t been what it was for him earlier in the season. That’s been trending for a while now, and his season average is now down around 34% from deep after shooting 30% from three over his past 10 games. That’s something that I expect/hope will come around but, really, isn’t the end of the world either way. We’re certainly at our best when Chance is knocking down threes confidently, but we can get that from other places.
What I’m more concerned about is the more recent trend of him pressing on offense, leading to some uncharacteristic turnovers in style (and costly situationally) but, more, teams starting to find ways to go after him more aggressively on the defensive end. The former issue was something that cropped up from time to time at the very beginning of the year and in the scrimmages as he was adjusting… perhaps it’s showing up more recently because of the shooting issues, unsure, but the latter is something that hasn’t really been an issue most of the season but we’re seeing it more often now. Let’s take a look:
Firstly, let me just say that Hammond is a pretty bad matchup for Chance. It reminds me a little (not comparing them directly) of when Kihei used to have to guard RJ Davis or Jeremy Roach. Those were scorers who were used to using their quickness, skill, and confidence to get buckets over bigger players. When they faced Kihei, he couldn’t bother them with his quickness, but they had a field day shooting over him because they were so used to having to get their shot off against more intrusive shot blockers.
Hammond presents similar problems as he’s bigger but also quick and used to having to score against length. Anyway, in this first clip below, we see a really rough sequence from Chance on both ends and it’s actually one that I gave Tillis some collateral damage for above (but I stand by it). Firstly, Mallory gets turned around on a cut from Hammond, losing him and actually finding himself running at the ball handler. Hammond is able to convert the opportunity at the rim. Mallory, ostensibly, then tries to get it back on the other end, but even though he gets by Hammond, he’s really just taking it into the heart of the VT defense without much help. Hansberry gives a good and strong contest, and Chance hits the floor while trying to convert. This allows Tech to break out 5-on-4 the other way and Mallory is unable to get back into the play in time to stop Hammond’s drive a second time.
That’s three rough possessions in a row for Chance, two defensive and one offensive… which really isn’t something we’d have been able to say for the majority of the season until recently.
Here’s another look with both he and Tillis attempting to defend a two-man game, compounding the problem. Chance gets switched onto the 6’8′ 240lb Hansberry (#13) which is less than ideal and I’d much rather see Tillis getting through this screen. That being said, I remember Mallory scrapping successfully with Caleb Wilson earlier in the year… and this defense is just virtually no resistance. Chance finished with 0 fouls, so I’d at least like to see him aggressively gamble and try to swipe at the ball on a move like he has most of the year.
It doesn’t worry me that Chance Mallory can’t stop a player around a foot taller and over 50lbs heavier in the post. What worries me is the lack of comparative fight from him trying to do so compared with what we’ve seen from him… virtually all year. Chance has been the grit and tenacity guy; but not there.
Okay, this next one is just more kind of generally unable to impact the game in the way he wants. First, he gets pinned on a pick and roll and isn’t able to get back into the play enough to affect the return pass. Then, he brings the ball up the other way and, once again, gets caught in traffic without a great plan – this time getting jostled into travelling.
Here’s another bad turnover that comes from just kind of getting ahead of himself and jamming the ball into a waiting defender… it leads to another run out where they draw a foul:
This next one, below, is probably my least favorite because it’s him just getting blown by on the perimeter. Hammond sets up and rejects a screen and catches Chance pre-emptively trying to get over it, and then it’s just a waltz down the lane.
That’s one where the alertness and mental element come into question a little. That’s really the type of defense where he’s supposed to thrive; staying in front of his man, and then you deal with it if someone can make a tough shot over his contest/physicality. It’s not a good sign if he’s consistently just losing his man like this and having to recover/chase as we’ve seen in most of these plays so far. And all of this has actually caused his minutes to see Odom making some adjustments. In two of his last four games, Mallory has logged season lows in minutes, going under the 20 minute mark for the only two times (19 mins against N.C. State and 18 mins against VT). You’ve got to say, Odom is just plugged into how his guys are doing and will make those in-game adjustments accordingly for anyone.
The thing is, Chance absolutely still got that ability to defend in him. He clutched up here toward the end of the game, stayed close to Hammond on his chase, and got a good contest on a shot in the lane that turned into a bad miss.
It’s absolutely in him and he’s shown it throughout this season. Perhaps that’s the issue is that it does wear on you as a first year player putting that level of chaotic energy into every game. He’s always been THE spark this season… and that’s what we’ll need him to find again.
It’s odd because the way Mallory has closed the season is how I was expecting him to play before it started. Showing explosive glimpses but still being a bit raw and needing to grow into the role with more experience. What ended up happening was that, for the vast majority of the year, he was actually just straight-up one of the best players on the team. So… now that we’ve seen that… we’re greedy for it (as should he be), because we know he can do it and is completely capable.
My recommendation to him would be to try to do a little less on the offensive end and let the game come to him a little more. I think he’ll find that there’s still plenty of opportunity there and he doesn’t have to jam quite as much into traffic when he does. Take that energy and put it on the defensive side of the ball and challenge himself to be physical, keep everything in front of him, and get back to wreaking havoc like he has for the majority of the year.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Chance Mallory comes out and roasts any team on any given night now that we’re in tournament play – I think he’s that kind of player who has been looking forward to these opportunities. That’s kind of the last piece that would make everything click that we could reasonably count on and should be hoping for. That being said, this is currently the biggest disconnect between current form and season-long form, so now is a great time for some reclaiming of his game, of sorts.
Let’s go, my fellow townie!
In Conclusion
Everything is in front of us now. A fantastic first season under Odom thus far has the opportunity to be punctuated with a question mark, an ellipsis, a period, or an exclamation point.
From here, the Cuts schedule will depend on how everything goes… but I’m very grateful for the quality of content and performance that I’ve been fortunate enough to cover this year (especially in contrast with the depressing situation last year)! These guys have done a wonderful job representing the program and the school, and making the effort to connect – and we’ll be here rooting hard for them to achieve all of their goals.
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