Well, after a little time to sit and regroup, and for the first time in a couple of years since there was a coaching search last offseason, it’s time to dive into the first “State of The Program” under Ryan Odom. This comes on the heels of a narrow loss against an under-seeded Tennessee team in the Round of 32 after breaking the NCAA Tournament win drought we’ve had in place since the 2019 national championship in his first season. It will also probably be one of the shortest of these under the Odom tenure because, since everything is so new, it’s hard to say exactly what will be a trend vs. what was contained within this first season and the challenges associated with it. While the tournament exit was a little disappointing – I’d hoped we could be a Sweet 16 team and, with Iowa St.’s injury to Joshua Jefferson, we were a couple of plays and bad whistles away from a potential Elite Eight opportunity. I think that’s important in terms of all of the context of the regular season going almost as well as it could have (2nd in the ACC, amassing 30 total wins including the round of 64), with the ongoing narrative that we didn’t have any “signature” wins, with our metrics being good, to that Tennessee game. Our ending came up short, but our ability to compete was right there with all but the best teams. We had no shot against Michigan, but we were right there against that next tier. I think it’s safe to say that, while we might have hoped for at least one more win in the NCAA Tournament, that this season was a resounding success for a first-year coach who assembled a roster basically from scratch.
The question then becomes, where do we go from here, and how do we build on that momentum. It’s early yet and, as I’m writing this, there hasn’t been any transfer portal news aside from our own player retention. As we go through this, and since we’re just entering year two of the Odom era, we’ll focus on two main elements – the roster and coaching assembly, and the actual in-game coaching itself. Let’s start by talking about the lead into year 1, and then the changes into this season.
Ground Zero
When Coach Odom signed his contract to replace a program legend…’s successor, the first thing he had to decide was how to approach the existing roster. How many of the guys, and coaches, would he push to keep? Turns out, not many. Aside from the revered Mike Curtis (strength and conditioning), Virginia Athletic Trainers Hall of Fame member Ethan Saliba, and a few others, none of the court-facing coaches were retained and only one scholarship player, Elijah Gertrude, returned. Gertrude stayed because he loves the school, for sure, (and he’s also staying again, cementing that further) but also because it made a lot of sense for him to do so regarding his marketability in Charlottesville and because of his injury rehabilitation with Mike Curtis. Everyone else, gone.
Now, this was almost exclusively Odom’s preference with just a few exceptions. By all accounts, he didn’t have a ton of interest in player retention and didn’t move with much urgency there or offer what many of the guys perceived as fair market value. Isaac McKneely was an exception, but I believe that he was given some poor advice in the wake of the vibes of everything else going on, and decided to leave as well. Poor for him, in my opinion, not necessarily for us as I believe that Jacari White was a better player and fit for what we did this past season. But, from his perspective, I believe that he could have been beloved at UVa as a four-year player who was willing to stick through the transition of the program through eras and, instead, he lost that level of status with the fan base.
As for the coaches, it was much of the same. There just weren’t many spots for many, given Odom bringing his own guys as well as Griff Aldrich from Longwood, but for those who may have made sense at the more junior coaching levels, it was made pretty clear that their retention wasn’t overly desired. Now, I wrote over the offseason that I thought it would have been better to keep at least one coach from the CTB era who could fit into their way of doing things and keep that continuity alive. Specifically, I was thinking of Kyle Guy, a mythic figure in his own right within the program.
Looking back in hindsight now, though, I can’t argue much at all with Odom’s decision-making on either front. One small quibble, I do think if he’d have been able to find a way to keep either of our PFs at the time as backups to TDR (although Cofie likely wouldn’t have been down with that role), it would have made us slightly better… but otherwise, no real notes. There’s value in moving on from the baggage those associated with CTB’s unexpected departure were carrying with them. Replace any reservations, twinges of disappointment, perceived status previously earned, with guys he’d already gone to work with and who were fired up for what was to come without always comparing it to the past. Now, that exact line of reasoning may or may not have been his motivation at the time, he may have also had other reasons – I’d be very interested to be able to have a fully transparent conversation with him about that – but the outcome of building up new traditions and ties to the university with excitement and no baggage spoke for itself. I wouldn’t think Coach Odom would look back with many regrets on those decisions, if any.
So, with only one returning scholarship player on the roster, Odom had to go to work – but he did have a very generous NIL budget with which to work and no issues embracing that side of the game. Remember, this was a program that had hit a real rough patch. We’d had some embarrassments from the play-in game against Colorado St., followed by the worst season we’d had since before Tony Bennett coached the team. Odom had his own reputation he brought with him of having relatively quick success, but it’s hard to pitch that on a new team, known for a very different style of play. “Look how we played there. I’m going to apply that here,” is already a pitch that requires imagination – but especially really without any returning players to help show the vision. The response? Target very specific guys that fit how he wanted to play, and overpay them to get them in the door. We did that for Sam Lewis, Jacari White, and Devin Tillis to get the momentum rolling… and eventually did it pretty much across the board, while also retaining Chance Mallory’s recruitment and bringing a couple of VCU guys with him as bench depth and redshirt development.
In my opinion, it was really sharp AND good timing. We saw lots of things on display:
- His ability to identify how pieces will come together to fit his offensive and defensive systems together and to target those. Aside from arguably Devin Tillis who was better before his second injury (I do think he wasn’t the ideal fit schematically), he basically hit on everyone.
- His ability to pull from the international network and, more so, find guys whose game would translate.
- His ability to pull all of the pieces together quickly and also give them attachment to the university (more on these later).
- His ability to develop a detailed plan around the resources provided and then execute.
Throughout the plan, there were many times where lookers on had some concerns. For example, bringing some of his VCU players to grounds like his rim protector Luke Bamgboye and not signing him. Being rumored to be in on Terrence Arceneaux, who went to N.C. State. But, almost every time something like that happened, there was a superior option that was being targeted behind the scenes (this staff moves in even more secrecy than the CTB crew did). We landed Ugonna Onyenso who was one of the very best shot blockers in the country instead of Bamgboye. In came First Team All-ACC Thijs De Ridder to fill the starting PF need. The only two potentially slight missteps, to my mind, were the Tillis situation which I’ve already discussed – and then having Duke Miles committed only to have him leave after Dallin Hall’s signing. I’m not sure what exactly the thought process was there. Perhaps, at that time, they expected to rely less on Mallory. Miles, averaged over 16 points per game, and was a physical and very good defender. He scored 30 points in their Quarterfinal win over Tennessee in the SEC Quarterfinal. And, while I’ve written recently that Dallin Hall was an under-appreciated part of this team with how his contributions game, his defense, his leadership, and his effectiveness throughout our differing lineups, and it’s unclear how Miles’s personality would have fit with the group, it’s also probably fair to classify that as the biggest misstep of last offseason. Perhaps that will be a lesson learned for Odom, that it’s good to recruit to depth and competition, but some finesse may need to be used when you already have a quality fish in the boat.
All-in-all, though, this was a masterclass in roster assembly given what things had been the season prior and how many fresh faces he had to bring in all at the same time. If we consider Tillis a miss (and the lesson learned there is the athleticism he needs to be able to defend at this level) and then Hall over Miles as a half a miss (because Hall was still good, just not as good), that still leaves a very admirable hit rate when filling 9 new core rotational slots.
Pivoting To Year Two
Now, let’s get into this season, because there are a lot of things that have changed now. Much in line with the national trend of the very best teams, we are invested in retention now, in contrast with last season. In fact, we’re one of only a few programs in the country to return every single eligible player (seven) that could have hit the portal, including four core players from last season (three starters) in Chance Mallory, Sam Lewis, Thijs De Ridder, and Johann Grünloh. Given that over 2,000 players, projected to be almost half of all players by the end of it, entered the portal, that’s remarkable. It speaks to the culture that Odom and staff have built so quickly, as well as the quick shift from last offseason. Then, he was basically cleaning house to make sure that he got his guys, his fit, his culture. Now that he built it successfully, the priority was keeping it. It’s, frankly, a fantastic start to have so many guys from a top 25 team in the country who have a year playing together under their collective belts all coming back. The question, now, becomes – how do you supplement the rest of the roster?
We still have significant gaps at starting SG, backup Center, and either backup PG or effective combo guard. Ostensibly you’ll want some additional depth as well because counting on ALL of Gertrude, Carrère, and Barksdale to be significant contributors next year may be a bit aggressive. If this were last year, we could have likely just used the excitement about our roster retention to go get some more money from donors to spend and fill out the rest… but this year we’re ostensibly playing under the revenue sharing rules.
If unfamiliar, the House vs. NCAA Settlement created guidelines whereby athletic departments can now share up to 22% of the average revenue ($20.5 million this year across all sports) directly with athletes. They sign direct contracts rather than dealing with collectives, but can still earn NIL from outside deals… and those deals have to be reviewed by a third party for authenticity. As you can imagine, this has created a whole new can of worms. The majority of the rev share goes to the football programs and the basketball programs have to use that and a combination of coordination with NIL deals to broker the money, which theoretically isn’t supposed to be pay for play by the school. Some major programs are just ignoring the ruling entirely, gambling that the NCAA will not be able to enforce any penalties and/or that challenges will not hold up in the court of law. As for us, we appear to be working under the rev share guidelines and then using other methods (and international players apparently can’t receive direct rev share anyway) to compensate the basketball team. Generally speaking, when there are the pretense of rules, we’re disadvantaged because we’re not going to be as aggressive at pushing the limits on them as many other programs even if our overall funding could be very good.
This is where it starts to all get intentionally murky. It’s clear that we still have money to spend by the fact that our key returning players all returned (although it’s possible that all four could have gotten more on the open market – so score one for loyalty and situation). It’s unclear what remains, if we’re facing any financial limitations from here, or how our budget is structured. Will we swim more in the international waters as a result of this? Will the money be there regardless for domestic guys?
What does seem apparent is that we’re a little more focused on market value this time around as opposed to last year, and trying to identify some more value picks as opposed to swinging for the fences. Potentially/hopefully, though, the season proof of concept that we just had along with the solidified roster that will be returning will be enough to convince the right players to fill these gaps. Who knows, we could always be surprised and see someone we’ve “dropped a bag” on come through… but it possible we’ll need to be more frugal. More to come on this element. I, for one, found it refreshing last year when we felt comfortable using the full power of the resources at our disposal to kick things off on the right foot… so we need to find a way to continue that and this offseason we’ll find out what that looks like, one way or another.
There appear to be additional wrinkles in the mix, like the Executive Order recently imposed that will surely be contested, and the NCAA proposing 5-year eligibility and hard age caps (which could be relevant for Ugonna Onyenso attempting to get a 5th year of his own eligibility, by the way). A lot to come. Losing Griff Aldrich feels like a significant blow on this front, as well, as his lawyer-y acumen and love of contracting appeared to be quite advantageous in year one. I do feel very confident in our athletic department’s forward thinking, Odom’s evaluation and strategy, and our donor’s willingness and determination to support the program… my main hope is that we do not, for very long anyway, end up playing by rules that others are not. Tale as old as time if we do, I guess.
Either way, the pieces we have on the roster for this coming season should put us in a VERY competitive position regardless of how we fill out the roster – but if we can make a few more splashes and not settle, the roster could be something special. Give me some athleticism and positional length, really across the board now with most incoming pieces, and I’m going to feel pretty optimistic – but get us at least one volume scorer at the SG in that mold, another great rim protecting Center, and a quality backup PG – ideally all in that same mold? Mhm!
I’ll also be interested to see how we do at integrating new players into a situation where there are so many familiar faces who already know how to play with each other. I assume that will be easier than integrating everyone from scratch, but there could still be some unforeseen bumps in the road with new guys not feeling like they fit in or being behind in the ramp up. It’s not something I’m overly concerned about, but it is a reminder that we’re still SO early in the Odom tenure and there are a lot of new frontiers that haven’t been crossed/encountered yet. We’re still learning so much about his decision-making and stylistic preferences while things across the college basketball landscape continue to change so dramatically.
System
Offense
The offensive system was a lot of what we expected looking at the history of Odom’s offenses. A lot of what was in there showed up this past season, including a lot of Horns, a lot of ball screen actions, some post up actions, especially out of the mid-post, some four and five out, most of that suite in the link. It was primarily characterized by trying to get early offense by pushing the ball early after most defensive rebounds and even some made baskets. Then, if that didn’t yield an easy look, trying to generate shots at the rim (or at least in the paint) or from three. Additionally, we put a huge emphasis on crashing the offensive glass and were one of the best teams in the country at doing so. The personnel we had, the systemic approach on how/where to attack the glass on certain shots, and then the defensive matchup strategy of guarding closest in defensive transition (and the communication that followed) allowed us to pursue this advantage in earnest which was a significant reason that our offense was as efficient as it was.
Generally speaking, I loved most of the offensive approach. Specifically, our effort to secure the offensive glass was so valuable (especially when our shooting fell off some mid-season) and should be repeatable given we’re returning some of our best players on that front.
I thought our transition offense had moments of brilliance but also had moments where we got away from it. We had a fine group of guys to run it between their intention, that we often played both PGs who both took care of the ball, and our collective shooting/willingness to pull up on the secondary break – but I also thought there was an opportunity to target better personnel in this area. Chance was quick with the ball and Dallin made good decisions, and both were willing to pull up and take open threes, but neither were coast-to-coast threats that often and both needed clear advantages to force opportunities at the rim. Malik Thomas too often forced things into traffic and didn’t find the ACC whistle as forgiving as the WCC one. He could still sometimes make remarkable plays through his handle and strength, but forced quite a few empty possessions into traffic as well. De Ridder is very good in transition as a PF and forced some good actions pressuring the ball as well – but also had too loose of a handle at times and created some sloppy turnovers. White was pretty explosive at times, but also made some sloppy plays. I did like Lewis in transition and would have liked to see him in the position more often. Both of our Centers ran the floor pretty well. Tillis made some sharp passes and decisions and hit some nice trailing threes… but wasn’t getting the ball up the floor quickly nor was he much of a finishing threat at full speed like that. Basically, we were good at this, but not great. Most of the returning guys are well-suited for the transition game, and I could see prioritizing more athleticism (this will be a theme) really helping here.
As for our sets and half-court systems, I was generally pretty pleased and thought they created some quality looks for us most of the season. My biggest criticism would be the lack of innovation or imagination around some of the BLOB plays. That suite felt like some missed opportunities as we had a few cool things that worked – but it felt often like it lacked adaptation and they often resulted in us just lobbing the ball to a big to get the ball in and set up an offense. My second biggest criticism, and I did talk about this in my showcase on his offense, was that the offense sets did still often result in isolation basketball at the end of the shot clock – and we didn’t really have a ton of guys who were great at that. TDR could do it if he had some time to back his man down. Malik struggled early in the season but did get better by year end. Jacari would often end up taking a crazy step-back three – which could be great when he was feeling it but caused some ugly looks later on. Sam almost never took this responsibility early on in the season but got more assertive, and effectively, as the year went on. Hall and Mallory weren’t really the best-suited for this as they were often more effective within the core offense, running the pick and roll, and/or creating for others. Both certainly had some moments with effective drives in isolation over the season, but attacking in that way when the shot clock tipped the defense that they had to – that wasn’t their strength. So that’s something that will be really interesting with regard to their remaining portal pickups. Lewis will be back, TDR will as well, but most of your guys who would take the ball with an expiring shot clock and try to get to the rim or take a pull up three are no longer on the roster. We’ll need to fill the need and, ideally, with some guys who are better at it. Lastly, I’d just generally like Johann Grünloh be more involved in the offense in general next season. This season, his hand injury at the end of the season kind of eliminated his ability to contribute there, but I thought that his outside shot only really came on later in the year and would love to see him get more attempts to solidify our spacing. He was good as a hub and a passer, but I thought we got away from that more as the season progressed too, and he struggled in general to get buckets around the rim when he would catch the ball and his defender was in good defensive position. We’ll need him to put on strength to be able to go get his own bucket some rather than mostly the put backs, offensive rebounds (which were great) and rim-running where he mostly contributed this year.
But, put all of it together and I really thought there was a lot of good there. We had lots of different ways we could run offense, and we took advantage of as many ways as we could to get easy buckets (transition and second-chance). I think the system is well-suited for us to be successful, especially with so many returning players to begin to iterate off of it. There is room for improvement by layering in more options and design – and then just putting more guys in it who are well-suited to make something happen on their own when things do break down.
Defense
Defensively, we were very similar to how he ran things at VCU, but with better rim protection and worse perimeter defense (and backup PF difference). Grünloh and Onyenso covered a lot of defensive sins over the span of the season, and TDR being fully switchable was another boon. Fortunately, Johann and TDR will be back, but Onyenso will be difficult to replace as one of the best shot-blockers (and alterers) in the country.
To revisit, our defense starts by matching up primarily to nearest full-court after either makes or misses with the exception of our Center who typically looks for his man and beelines to him. We press with the goal of slowing the ball and shortening the opposition’s shot clock, and with the added benefit of causing the occasional turnover. One thing I would say about this was that, while we didn’t have the ideal personnel to press at all times, we did have some really nice pieces for it. TDR was great on his man and forced a lot of turnovers just being active and strong around the ball. Mallory was incredibly active and disruptive, and Jacari and Sam had some nice moments as well. It’s also an area where we could improve with a few more athletes (there’s that trend again). Elijah Gertrude showed a knack for making things difficult on the opposition here this season, and perhaps will grow more into that role next. I’d have also liked to see us to more with this in big moments as well, though. We ran roughly a similar variant all season where we’d try hard to get a steal on the inbound, and then just pressure the ball one-on-one up the court on the way back. There were opportunities to lull the opponent to sleep with the same actions and scout, but to spring traps and more aggressive options on them. I understand and agree that we didn’t have the perfect personnel for this, but I do think that the element of surprise could have been effective in the right moment. I’d like to see us explore adding some wrinkles to this in the coming seasons. We can have the status quo – I think it’s good at slowing down the opposition while creating the free turnover every once in a while – but there’s opportunity being lost if we never mix it up at all.
In the half court, we primarily ran the same defense where our 1-4 switched all ball screens and our 5 played drop coverage on them, working to give depth so that he was always around the rim to help on drives. Our guards would work to get over the top of ball screens on the perimeter, and then chase to get back into the play while our Center would often cover both. Now, I really liked the defensive scheme primarily because our Centers were SO good at their role. Ugo and Johann made everything hard at the rim. But, if our backup Center ends up not being as formidable as either of our options this past year, we’re going to have to make up for it in some other way. Primarily, I think that will have to come from our perimeter defense which, often, was just okay this past year and ranged from pretty good to pretty bad (worse earlier in the year but never overly formidable). So, getting back to this “athlete” concept – one thing that you saw the VCU guards do when they defended was to really put pressure on the ball at all times, they did a great job of fighting over screens and staying attached, and they did a phenomenal job of proactively rotating off of their man to try to go make an aggressive steal, block, etc. It wasn’t just the Center staying home, it was a swarm of help side defenders and guys around the ball constantly harassing the opposition and trying to create mistakes. That’s the element of last year’s team that we didn’t really see a ton that I’d like to see worked into this year, and it was primarily because Hall, Thomas, and White (and even Lewis at times, but he was solid by year’s end and had a few big plays like blocks from behind in the Duke game while he was doing this) all had their own defensive limitations. Hall was smart and strong and switched pretty well, but he wasn’t overly quick nor disruptive on the ball. Thomas was also not the most quick-footed, but was also strong. His defense improved dramatically over the season but still wasn’t at the level we’re discussing. White was quicker, but not nearly as strong and he wasn’t often as alert or well-positioned away from the ball. So, if you’re going to be replacing those guys, you’d like to see it be with defenders with some more range and ability to disrupt – especially if you can’t backfill for Onyenso with the same level of quality (it would be hard to do!).
The same goes for the switching. Mallory did a nice job of not being an obvious target for mismatches for the majority of the season due to his strong and tenacious defense; but teams started to catch on a bit by the end that they could likely get some of their larger guards isolated against him. Having De Ridder be SO good at it is a big plus for the scheme – and especially if you can find someone better at this than Tillis was when he rests. But we’re probably going to need both a bigger PG option to come off of the bench to help with some of these moments. Addressing our guard athleticism will also be valuable to supporting these situations, though, and sometimes you can even try proactive switches back away from mismatches with good defensive communication.
But, yes, I do think that the defensive system is a significant plus IF we can continue to recruit for it. Odom exceeded expectations around this last year at his most important defensive position in the Center and supported that with a perfect PF for his system… but there were opportunities to enhance what he can do with who we bring in to run the scheme at the guard/wing moving forward. He has a good framework in place for this season – but still has work to do with regard to that backup Center and the athleticism of his guard profile will go a long way to determining whether we could potentially improve upon last year’s unit or at least make up for the (ostensible) loss of Ugo in other ways. Eli playing in the core rotation after being fully healthy and having another year to learn it could be helpful. Barksdale as the backup PF instead of Tillis (or another portal player) should be helpful… but there are gaps. IF we don’t have the constant rim protection that we once had and our new portal class offers similar (or worse) athleticism than our guards last year, then it might be worth making some adjustments to this scheme. We do know that Odom will tailor things to his roster. For now, though, I really like the potential here and will be hopeful for who gets signed.
In-Game
The last section I’ll cover here is with Odom’s tactics throughout the year with regard to his lineups and key decision-making. I do have some thoughts that I’ll share on a moment on what could have been done better, but I want to couch it by saying that criticism there is largely picky and setting an unreasonably high bar. For the most part, Odom was excellent this season with who he used and when he used them. His philosophy was basically that he started the game the same way, started early rotations the same way, and then adjusted to game flow and how guys were playing pretty quickly. He had a really good sense for who needed to be in the game in real time and I often found myself saying something to the effect of “we need to get (insert player) back in (or out),” only to have that thing happen almost immediately.
Two main concepts that I thought illustrated this well were, one, Malik Thomas. Thomas was the biggest domestic portal addition we made over the offseason in terms of how much NIL was needed to pull him in the open market and how much credibility he brought with him as a scorer. Often, when you have a player like that, coaches feel compelled to play them in order to justify the spend that they made on them. You see this across sport, not just in the college game; the sunk cost fallacy where a player may not be playing as well as you need, but you continue to get them run to try to justify the spend. Not Coach Odom. Early-to-mid season Thomas’s defense was really bad. He was fouling unnecessarily, struggling to know where to be in the defense, and struggling to keep his man in front of him. In addition, he was forcing things on offense and wasn’t shooting as his previous clip. I absolutely loved Odom’s approach to this. He didn’t bench Thomas, nor did he even pull him out of the starting lineup, but he did scale back his minutes dramatically if it was clear that the same issues were present early in a game. This simultaneously gave Malik the wake-up call that he needed while also still showing him that he was a big part of the plan and that we needed him. By the end of the season, Thomas was paying much better on both ends of the floor, and was often out there to help close down games. He was huge in the Quarterfinal win over N.C. State in the ACC Tournament, was one of our best players in the loss against Duke in the tournament final, and was on pace to a good game against Tennessee before getting hurt in the NCAA Tournament. He finished the season as our second leading scorer which may not have been quite as prolific as hoped, but it was a situation that had the potential to fall off the rails if Coach Odom hadn’t navigated the situation well.
Secondly, I appreciated what he did with the starting lineup. The starting lineup was static all but one game, ostensibly that one for off the court issues. There was a lot of vocalization throughout the season about this; specifically the desire to put Chance Mallory and Ugonna Onyenso into the starting lineup. I liked keeping both where they were, and for different reasons. For one, as mentioned a bit in the section above, who started didn’t directly correlate with who played the most minutes. So, when guys weren’t playing well, it’s not like they were locked in to close the game because they were starters. Both Onyenso and Grünloh alternated who would play the majority of the minutes throughout the season. In the ACC Tournament, for example, Ugo logged huge minutes both due to Johann’s injury and due to how well he was playing. Their time ebbed and flowed, but not taking Grünloh out of the starting lineup helped to keep the younger player’s confidence in a good spot. There was a stretch during the mid-end of the season where he hit that Freshman wall and struggled for a bit. It would have been easy to make a change then but, instead, by leaning into Onyenso minutes without changing the starters, Grünloh was afforded the ability to keep plugging away. By the end of the season, before his injury, he was shooting the ball from outside better than he had all year (raising his season-long average to 35% from deep), he had regained his defensive form including 29 blocks in his final 11 games (and 8 against N.C. State on 2/24), and he ended up logging our most (just slightly) minutes in the NCAA Tournament, despite playing with a broken hand, because his mobility was better against Wright State going bonkers from three but things also went better with him on the floor vs. Tennessee as well. Point being, Onyenso being comfortable with his role off of the bench combined with Odom’s philosophy on starters and minutes created a situation where both were playing the best basketball they could be (injury included) during postseason play.
The Chance situation was a little bit different. I have no doubt that Dallin Hall would have been comfortable coming off of the bench and we ended up playing both together quite a lot. In fact, much of the time we closed down games with both out there, which we’ll talk about momentarily. I still loved Chance coming off of the bench for several reasons. For one, our starting lineup, together, with Hall at the point flatly played better all season than our starting lineup with Mallory at the point instead. Just, direct comparison, Hall navigated that group the best and it’s likely because he was more of the pass-first player to get the others going early, more of a steadying presence, and his all-around defensive game was probably the best of our guards except for when Lewis was really locked in which compensated for some of the tradeoff in having Grünloh on the floor over Onyenso. But timing Chance off of the bench typically just ahead or after of the first-four minute time out allowed him to provide an absolute spark of energy into an already established game. It gave him the opportunity, as a Freshman, to assess how the game was going and where he could contribute initially. We also often timed him coming on with Onyenso, who provided additional defensive coverage, and White, whose frantic pace of play could match Chance’s and, together, they could often make the offense instant and the game flow feel like it turned on its head. They were often doing this against the opposition’s first bench subs, too, which was a huge advantage for us to have this quality come in and exploit these matchups. I thought it was a large reason that the “bench mob” did so well throughout the season. It was less effective when, say, Hall was in foul trouble and then Mallory HAD to set the table mostly himself and the opposition was able to adjust. Odom did a nice job, I thought, of keeping their rotations clean early and then, as the game progressed and, usually at the end, using them together because, metrically, they were our best two-man guard pairing all season. A deft job, in my opinion, of maximizing what Chance was able to bring to the table and inject into the game while also shielding and minimizing the impacts of his inexperience as best as possible. He, too, hit a Freshman wall toward the end of the season (although it was less of a wall and more of a slight tapering of quality on the aggregate), but we were pretty well-positioned to handle it. Additionally, allowing him to play behind and alongside Hall all season, who was a contrast in playstyle and lacked in some areas that Chance thrived but was very good in others where Chance had room to develop – it was a good learning experience and valuable developmentally. I liked the approach and think that using Chance as well as we did will give him confidence, additional poise, knowledge… and he’ll be well suited to take the reins from here. I wouldn’t have changed Odom’s approach here and think that he offered some valuable and steadying perspective that took a longer-term view.
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So, where to quibble? There were some things, and some of it may sound a little counter-intuitive with the thoughts above – but these are mostly what I’d think of as mistakes in the moment. More, items made more clear through the benefit of hindsight. Also, for most of these, it was encouraging how quickly Coach Odom seemed to learn and internalize the lesson on his end rather than continuing the mistake. That’s, honestly, what encouraged me the most about his in-game coaching this season. Often coaches, even great ones, fall in love with an idea and it takes them a long time, if ever, to get off of it entirely. Coach Odom had plenty of ideas, and I thought he was clear-eyed around what didn’t work and wasn’t likely to vs. what didn’t work but likely could given more time.
I wrote earlier that I thought the main misevaluation in roster assembly was Devin Tillis. I wrote in my offseason evaluation of him that his defense could be a concern as he was able to get away with it against lesser competition while relying on a 7-footer to support him in the frontcourt. Well, he had two 7-footers supporting him in the frontcourt this season, but it’s harder to hide or mask that defense against power conference-level competition, and it showed up as the schedule got tougher. Poor guy; some of this also coincided with him hurting his knee a second time and he never seemed right after that, but that was also around the time the schedule started to get meatier. Either way, the evaluation was the evaluation, but the miscalculation around use, I believe was the foray into playing Tillis at the SF early in the season. No doubt this came from the belief that we’d benefit from his passing, shooting, savvy on the floor more often, but his lack of quickness off the bounce and on the defensive end did not jive with this role. Additionally, his back down game from the mid-post also did not translate very well to this level so when we often went to that with him at the SF, the ball would sometimes stick and/or we’d end up with him getting strongly contested shots as opposed to just running the offense or using a better mismatch. My main qualm was that bumping Tillis up to the SF increased the already existing log jam at the guard position. I think we would have already benefitted from more ways to get Thomas, White, and Lewis more time on the floor early in the season and, additionally, there could have been some benefit to getting Gertrude some more reps as well (at some point hoping that his comfort level on the floor would increase and become more consistent). Tillis minutes at the SF represented some opportunity cost across the lineup and wasn’t a great line. Now, to his credit, Odom moved away from this after several games and eventually, by the end of the season (which was fine from a load management perspective throughout the regular season for TDR) had scaled Tillis’s minutes down to around 10 or under in some of our more important games. That level of clarity was welcomed and fantastic to see.
As much as I praised his ability to move away from Malik Thomas because of his early season slump and defense, I do think there were a few times where the lack of trust there cost us. At the end of the triple OT game against VT, for example, Thomas was one of our only sources of offense and was playing well throughout the game, but we still limited his minutes (for Tillis SF minutes, by the way) throughout the game and didn’t even play him in OT until the end of the second stanza. He DID learn from this game, and was quicker to trust Thomas moving forward (and by the end of the season Malik was playing very well and out there in a lot of clutch moments – the trust restored), but I did think there was still a slower uptick there during the middle part of the season where Thomas was sitting more than he needed to given how he was contributing. That’s a hard tightrope to walk and I can see how this thought would be confusing given how I think the overall philosophy of scaling back his minutes was a good one. It just goes to show how hard it is to stay in tune with the game-to-game fluctuations in player performance. My main take away is that when you have a player like Thomas who has the skill to make a significant difference, but who isn’t playing well/is adjusting to the level of competition, it’s worth believing them when they’re showing you that they’re on.
Lastly, I’ll revisit the two PG thing, which was, unquestionably, a strength of the team. This isn’t an old school Reece/Kihei debate; Hall and Mallory were complementary players and fit well in lineups together. Using them together was a success over the span of the season. I do think that Odom got slightly comfort-zoned with both, and it was the lone instance (aside from TDR which was correct regardless due to his defense) where he didn’t always adjust to how both were playing and more just trusted them to be out there in crunch time. Often, this worked just fine and, again, they were our most efficient two-man pairing. But, there were also plenty of times where one wasn’t having their best game and, unlike our other guards, we would still close with them. Normally, at the end, it would be Hall and Mallory and then ONE of whoever was playing the best between White, Thomas, and Lewis. But, some of our most effective lineups all season included one of the PGs, Lewis, and either White or Thomas.
Our most effective three-man lineup, by a significant amount, was White, Lewis, and Grünloh
Our Thomas, White, Lewis trio weren’t nearly as consistent as our Hall and Mallory duo – but when we had multiple of those guys cooking, it was often more effective. And I thought that, toward the end of the season, especially when all of the three (Thomas, White, Lewis) were mostly playing well (White not as much in the ACC Tournament, Lewis not as much against Tennessee) and Mallory was the one on the more inconsistent side, it would have benefitted Odom to have applied that hot hand approach across all five backcourt players throughout the season as opposed to mostly just the 2-3 and 5. This will be something to keep an eye on next year once we have a better sense at how our backup PG and core SG situation shake out.
Overall, though, I was very high on Coach Odom’s roster and lineup management throughout the season. This is something I’ve harped mightily on in recent seasons past with the on-court result not taking enough priority in who is on the floor. I always felt like that was the top consideration from Odom on any given night, thought the vision over the course of the season was fantastic, and almost always found myself feeling confident about the decisions we were making around roster-utilization in game. The talking points above were notable, but largely minor compared to the overall confidence here.
I’ll just throw a final note on here that I didn’t have any major concerns or issues with any of the other in-game tactics throughout the season. I enjoyed Odom’s courtside manner; mostly calm and stoic but also fiery and competitive at times. I personally enjoy it when a coach’s reactions feel proportional to what’s happening in game rather than overreacting to everything. It gives more credence to the moments where he’s heated – and there were a few of those. I don’t mind a well-timed technical (as long as it’s not at the end of a close game) to draw some notice to (and push back on) lopsided officiating. There were some really nice ATO looks in good moments throughout the season (and some that weren’t as great). I’d like to have a larger sample-size, to be honest, on his actual game management outside of who was on the floor to go into much more detail. Perhaps something that will become relevant with time, but I generally thought he had a pretty good feel for it. As I’m writing this, I’m thinking about the trust he had in Chance Mallory at the end of the home game against Miami where he could have called a timeout and drawn up a play, but he saw the head of steam Chance was building and trusted him to make a play (which he did):
There’s room to grow for him in these situations, I think, but I do believe that he has a good feel for the game and makes some nice adjustments. In fact, adjusting to his players and skills on his roster has always been a strength of him in previous stops – so I’ll look forward to seeing how that develops in future seasons.
In Conclusion
What a great first year under Ryan Odom! Thirty wins, a top ten ranked team at one point, second place in the ACC, and an NCAA Tournament victory in year one with a fully rebuilt roster! It wasn’t perfect, but nothing ever is, and there was so much here to get excited about from the strategy to the execution. In a world dominated by NIL and player movement, where retention of quality players is one of the largest factors in postseason success, we will be returning ALL SEVEN eligible players next season. That’s remarkable. That speaks volumes.
I’m looking forward to seeing how the portal develops to supplement from here, and will be doing my standard Tracking A Transfer pieces once the broader movement seems complete. Root with me, if you will, that we prioritize athleticism across the remaining openings (backup PG, starting SG, backup C, and then likely another wing/guard). I believe that with the way our roster is constructed and how Odom likes to play, that will be the biggest key to next season. There’s a lot of room for optimism right now almost regardless of how it goes from here, though, as our returning core already packs a huge punch and has a season together under their belt. Awesome stuff!
Alright, all, you can find me on social media, but I’ll be going into a slight article hibernation to rest and recharge the batteries during the bulk of the portal. Will be back with some transfer breakdowns late Spring/early Summer! Take care and thanks, as always, for supporting the site!
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