Hokie Hoops Central: Virginia Tech (19-11) at Virginia (26-4) Noon The CW Network

Hokie Hoops Central:
Virginia Tech (19-11)
at
Virginia (26-4)
Noon
The CW Network

UVA -11.5
O/U 144.5
ESPN Analytics UVA 86%

Battle for the State and Battle for the Bubble

Not sure its ever happened, but the Hokies have an opportunity for a complete basketball sweep of UVA today. It will be an uphill battle though. After losing to the Hokies in December, UVA is 15-2 with losses to UNC with Caleb Wilson and to Duke. The Hokies are in a must win or must win 2-3 games in ACC Tournament if they want to break the bubble. There are way too many bubble teams this season to leave it to chance.

I have seen comments about how Charlottesville has huge home cooking but the data doesnt prove that out. UVA only had one hone game that they were larger than a +3 in fouls drawn and that was against hackattack Pitt who leads the ACC in fouls this season. All the rest of their home games have been a +3/-3 margin.

That still isnt necessarily a good thing for the Hokies. The Hokies had 30 free throw attempts in the first meeting so dont expect that today. They will need to hit their shots.

In all its ACC wisdom, this is another Commonwealth Clash held when students are on break as UVA Spring Break started yesterday.

Expect to see the Havoc full court pressure and extremely aggressive man-to-man defense looking for turnovers and transition scoring. High pace means high turnover on the players on the floor so expect UVA to go as many as twelve deep.

The Post play numbers are driven by their Freshman from Europe, Johann Grunloh and Thijs De Ridder along with transfer Forward Ugonna Onyenso from Nigeria. The trio put up 29.8 ppg, 16.6 rpg and 5.5 bpg. De Ridder does most of the scoring at 16 ppg and the other two most of the blocks.

Handling the ball is another Freshman Phenom that had the Hokies in his final two. Chance Mallory is putting up 10 ppg, 3.9 rpg, and 3.5 apg as a change of pace off the bench. The kid can absolutely take over a game though. He ran Texas ragged.
BYU Transfer Senior Dallin Hall is the starting PG putting up 6.1ppg, 3.7 rpg and 4.2 apg.

Their defense isn't where Odom wants it in terms of creating turnovers as Opponents are averaging just 10.8 per game. Thats less than the first time we faced them. Odom has a stated goal of 15 per game. They dont run full court press the entire game but Odom definitely uses it early to try to create an early lead to set the tone.

Offensively they utilize a high number of pick and roll plays with as many as three players attacking simultaneously. The only weakness to this is it exposes them to transition opportunities in the other direction but they attack the basket for second chance opportunities. They are averaging 13.5 offensive rebounds a game and putting up almost 12 second chance points.

Shooting wise, they are hitting 55% inside and 33% from perimeter. Their three point shooting took a major crash since December. They were 16th in D1 last time, that has fallen to 95th. Malik Thomas, Sam Lewis and Jacari White are their volume shooters outside, accounting for about 50% of their perimeter shots. White though is the threat, hitting 44% of his 5 attempt per game.

They have scorers consistently on the floor with Ridder/Thomas starting and Mallory/White off the bench so they rarely have those four minute scoring droughts that Hokies fans have come to dread the last few seasons.

Cavaliers Starters
Thijs De Ridder
#28 FR F 6-9 238
16.0 Pts, 6.2 Reb, 1.6 Ast

Malik Thomas
#1 SR G 6-4 190
11.9 Pts, 4.1 Reb, 1.7 Ast

Sam Lewis
#5 JR G 6-6 200
10.2 Pts, 3.5 Reb, 1.4 Ast

Johann Grünloh
#17 FR C 7-0 238
7.8 Pts, 5.5 Reb, 0.7 Ast

Dallin Hall
#30 SR G 6-4 200
6.1 Pts, 3.7 Reb, 4.2 Ast

Cavaliers Bench
Chance Mallory
#2 FR G 5-10 186
10.0 Pts, 3.9 Reb, 3.5 Ast

Jacari White
#6 SR G 6-3 170
9.0 Pts, 2.3 Reb, 1.4 Ast

Ugonna Onyenso
#33 SR F 6-11 225
6.0 Pts, 4.9 Reb, 0.6 Ast

Devin Tillis
#11 SR F 6-6 215
4.8 Pts, 2.8 Reb, 1.4 Ast

Elijah Gertrude
#12 JR G 6-4 180
1.7 Pts, 0.9 Reb, 0.7 Ast