Sunday was supposed to be the first real test. After two warm-up wins at John Paul Jones Arena, No. 9 Virginia traveled to Capital One Arena in Washington to face No. 12 Arkansas, the reigning SEC Tournament champion and a Sweet 16 team under John Calipari. The betting market saw a coin flip. DraftKings opened Virginia as a 2.5-point favorite, and ESPN’s matchup predictor gave Arkansas a 58.1 percent chance to win.
It was not a coin flip. Thijs De Ridder picked up two fouls in the first two minutes and played roughly seven minutes in the first half, and Virginia still led 46-27 at the break. The lead reached 27 in the second half, Virginia led for 86 percent of the game, and all five starters scored in double figures.
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Virginia is 3-0, and it has its first marquee win of the season.
Here are my six takeaways.
This team is legit, and college basketball is on notice
Last season, Virginia won 30 games, the most ever by a first-year Virginia head coach, finished second in the ACC and reached the ACC championship game. But it went just 1-4 against ranked opponents, leading some national analysts to question whether Virginia was overrated and whether its résumé matched its record. On Sunday, three games into the season, Virginia matched last year’s total of ranked wins, and it did so by 19 points on a neutral floor.
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This was not a case of an opponent having an off night. Arkansas shot the ball well, especially in the second half, when it made 17 of 28 shots. Overall, it shot 46 percent from the field, the same as Virginia. The difference was everything else. Virginia won the turnover battle 15-9, turned those turnovers into 24 points to Arkansas’ six and grabbed 19 offensive rebounds. That added up to 10 more field goal attempts than the Razorbacks. Calipari saw it coming. “We’re going to be playing a veteran team that’s older, that’s established,” he said before the game. “If we’re not more physical, it’s hard to be in that game.” Despite being the more athletic team, as several high-flying plays showed, Arkansas was consistently outmuscled by Virginia, which had players diving for loose balls all night.
The Virginia offense also cleaned up the issue I flagged after Northeastern. After committing 14 turnovers in each of its first two games, Virginia had nine Sunday, and Chance Mallory had just one in 32 minutes while handing out six assists.
This was one of the marquee matchups of the college basketball season’s first week, and Virginia passed its first real test with flying colors.
The rotation became clear when it mattered
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Through the first two games, Ryan Odom went deep into his bench, which is what you do against overmatched opponents like Drexel and Northeastern. Sunday showed what the rotation looks like when Virginia has to have it. Seven players carried the game: the five starters, Kalu Anya (18 minutes) and Elijah Gertrude (13). Martin Carrere played six minutes, and Jurian Dixon and Favour Ibe combined for about four. The starters played 156 of 200 minutes and scored 75 of the 91 points.
That is a real contrast to last season. Last year, the “bench mob” was a key part of Virginia’s identity, with nine players averaging 15 or more minutes in ACC play by February. On Sunday, only six players reached 15.
The biggest swing was in the backcourt. Dixon, who entered third among bench players with 27 minutes through two games, played two. Jan Vide did not check in until the bench emptied with the green team at the end. Gertrude has clearly taken the sixth-man role I wrote about Friday, and he backed it up with eight points and three steals, including a steal and slam in the second half that put Virginia back up 20.
The newcomers also looked more comfortable. After combining for nine points against Northeastern, they scored 21 Sunday. Nolan Adekunle led the way with 13 points, 3-of-7 from three, no turnovers and 32 minutes of strong wing defense. Ibe, meanwhile, got his first college field goal, a two-handed slam off a feed from Anya that brought the Virginia fans in the crowd of 10,977 to their feet.
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The takeaways and pressure defense are here to stay
Virginia had 11 steals Sunday, three from Gertrude and two each from Mallory and De Ridder. Through three games, it has 41 steals and has forced 55 turnovers, turning them into 71 points. For context, Virginia averaged about 6.3 steals a game last season. Even beyond the steals, Virginia’s relentless pressure caused Arkansas to lose the ball multiple times and look uncomfortable on offense most of the night.
Despite Virginia’s success in the first two games, many fans wondered if the pressure could hold up against a top-flight opponent, especially one that plays as fast as Arkansas. Arkansas came in having scored 45 fast-break points in its 106-61 opener against Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Sunday, it scored 13. Arkansas had seven turnovers and just one assist in the first half, and its guards spent much of the afternoon picking up their dribble against Virginia’s ball pressure. Jordan Smith Jr. scored 19 points but needed 17 shots to get there and turned it over three times.
Johann Grünloh made the backup-center question irrelevant, at least for a day
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All offseason, one of the biggest questions about this roster was who would back up Grünloh at center after Ugonna Onyenso left for the NBA. Grünloh’s answer Sunday was to not need one. He played 35 minutes, the most on the team and the most he has played in a regulation game at Virginia, two days after the injured right ankle limited him to 21 minutes against Northeastern. Ibe played two minutes behind him.
He made the most of it: 15 points on 5-of-9 shooting, 5-of-6 at the line, four rebounds, two assists and five blocks. The blocks came against a long Arkansas frontcourt, and one in the second half stopped a fast break after a Virginia turnover.
The most encouraging part was his chemistry with Mallory in the pick-and-roll. Virginia ran the middle ball screen over and over, and Mallory kept finding Grünloh rolling to the rim, whether for a push shot, a slam or a trip to the free-throw line. That action was Virginia’s most reliable source of offense during the 15-3 first-half run that broke the game open.
Grünloh will not play 35 minutes every night, and he should not have to. But Virginia now knows it can lean on him for that long when the game calls for it. He may not be Virginia’s best player, but in my opinion he is its most irreplaceable, because no one else on the roster provides what he does.
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Virginia won despite De Ridder’s foul trouble, and the glass is why
De Ridder picked up two fouls in the first two minutes, which immediately put Virginia behind the eight ball. He then picked up his third with just over two minutes left in the half. Even so, he was remarkably efficient in his limited time, with nine points and six rebounds in about seven first-half minutes. He finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds, five of them offensive, in 24 minutes, and the broadcast named him its player of the game.
When De Ridder was out, it was Anya who filled in. He scored just three points, but they came on a powerful drive and an and-one that drew Miikka Muurinen’s second foul and sent him to the bench. Muurinen, who scored 12 points in 19 minutes, spent much of the first half on the bench, and that mattered as much as De Ridder’s absence. Anya also had six rebounds, three of them offensive, three assists, including a gorgeous feed inside to Ibe for the slam, and a block that started a 5-on-4 break and ended in an Adekunle corner three. He finished plus-17 in 18 minutes, second on the team behind Mallory.
The offensive glass was the other half of it. Virginia had 19 offensive rebounds, something the broadcast kept coming back to, and Martin Carrere had two in just six minutes. Those boards produced 28 second-chance points to Arkansas’ 14. Offensive rebounds do more than create second chances. Every one is a chance to slow down the game and keep Arkansas out of the fast break, which is how a team that scored 45 fast-break points on Tuesday ends up with 13.
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The second half was a draw, and Arkansas’ length is a preview of what is coming
Virginia led 46-27 at halftime and won 91-72. That means the second half finished 45-45. Virginia’s lead peaked at 27, and Arkansas then cut it to 15 with a stretch that included threes from Smith, Muurinen and Jeremiah Wilkinson before Virginia closed it out. With the game out of reach, that stretch will not register for most fans, but in a season where efficiency metrics drive seeding, a 27-point lead turning into a 15-point lead is unfortunate.
Arkansas also blocked 10 Virginia shots, three each from Billy Richmond III and Maper Maker. Grünloh was blocked going for a layup in the first half, De Ridder had four shots blocked, the most on the team, including one on a fast break, and Sam Lewis was turned away on a drive. This speaks to Arkansas’ length and athleticism, and to the tendency of many Virginia players to finish with finesse rather than through contact. Lewis finished with 16 points but needed 15 shots to get them. Virginia will see that kind of size and length again from Kentucky, UConn and Duke, and it will need to finish better at the rim when it does.
Finally, the seven-man rotation was very effective Sunday, but it leaves little margin for error. De Ridder finished with four fouls, Mallory took a hard foul in the second half and got up holding the back of his neck, and Grünloh played 35 minutes on an ankle that was bothering him two days earlier. If one of the core four goes down or gets into foul trouble against a better team, Virginia will need more from its bench pieces like Dixon, Carrere and Vide than it got Sunday.
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Bonus: Chance Mallory is invaluable
Mallory finished with 15 points, six assists, two steals and one turnover in 32 minutes, and his value went beyond the box score. His plus-22 was the best on the team. With Vide out of the rotation, Gertrude handled much of the point guard duty when Mallory sat. The results were mixed. In the first half, Virginia’s offense sputtered with Mallory on the bench, with a Gertrude turnover and an offensive foul in one stretch. In the second half, Virginia went on a run with Mallory and De Ridder sitting, but that came from the defense, not the half-court offense.
Mallory is the only player on the roster who consistently organizes the offense, and his step-back three late in the second half was a reminder that he can create his own shot when the play breaks down. Virginia’s backup ball handling is something to watch as the schedule toughens.
Bonus: Three games in six days, three wins and a résumé builder
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Virginia played a jam-packed opening week with Drexel on Tuesday, Northeastern on Friday and Arkansas on Sunday. Meanwhile, Arkansas had not played since Tuesday. Despite the schedule, Virginia came out of the week 3-0, with an average margin of 24.3 points and a top-12 win that will look good in March. This win will hopefully send Virginia up the polls, potentially flirting with a top-five ranking.
What’s next
Virginia returns to John Paul Jones Arena on Tuesday to host Bucknell at 9 p.m. (ACC Network), then visits Maryland on Friday at 8 p.m. (Peacock). After a week like this one, the challenge is avoiding a letdown, and getting Grünloh’s ankle some rest while doing it.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: Sports.yahoo.com
