On New Year’s Eve in 2018, the John Paul Jones Arena scoreboard rolled from 97 to 100. The crowd lost its mind after student manager Grant Kersey made an iconic buzzer-beating three, putting the finishing touch on No. 4 Virginia’s 100-64 demolition of Marshall. The scoring burst was a rare detour for Coach Tony Bennett’s defense-first Cavaliers en route to the 2019 national title.
Almost seven years later, the opponent was the same but almost everything else was different — a new head coach, a renewed roster and a pace that barely resembles the methodical teams of the last decade. The result, though, looked awfully familiar, with the scoreboard once again showing triple digits for Virginia.
Behind a 61-point first half and 23 points from freshman forward Thijs De Ridder, the Cavaliers (4-0, 0-0 ACC) throttled the Thundering Herd (3-1, 0-0 SBC) 104-78 in a midday tip-off at John Paul Jones Arena — their highest-scoring game since a 107-97 victory over VMI, Nov. 16, 2008.
From the first minute, Virginia looked intent on hijacking the Herd’s own fast-paced identity. Marshall arrived in Charlottesville averaging 86.3 points with 40 triples across their first three wins. The Cavaliers answered with an early 16-2 burst, sparked by senior guard Malik Thomas scoring 13 of those, to seize a 21-6 lead that they would never come close to relinquishing.
“Going into this game, we knew it was going to be a challenge because they're so different from the teams that we have just played,” Odom said. “Stylistically, we didn't want them shooting catch and shoot threes … I thought our guys did a nice job of getting out behind the line and forcing them inside the line.”
Virginia’s answer to this was making Marshall uncomfortable everywhere. The press hounded Marshall’s ball-handlers, and the Cavalier frontcourt beat the Herd down the floor. What had been billed as a shootout slowly tilted into a showcase of Virginia’s pressure and physicality.
“We let Virginia's pressure bother us,” Marshall Coach Cornelius Jackson said. “They're physical. I underestimated their physicality. I knew they were really good players, but I did underestimate the physicality coming in to start the game.”
That physicality powered a devastating first-half spurt. After Marshall briefly trimmed the deficit to 38-21, Virginia rattled off a 15-0 run, to blow the game open 53-21. The Herd managed some late buckets, led by freshman guard Landon Joseph.
But graduate guard Jacari White emphatically closed out the first half with a buzzer-beating stepback three — the scoreboard ticking to 61-33 in a record for first-half points, breaking the previous JPJ record of 60 against Gonzaga on Jan. 3, 2007.
However, the Cavaliers’ dominance faded soon after the teams returned from the locker room. Through an eight-minute period in the middle of the second half, Virginia’s only points came from the free-throw line. In that stretch, it looked as if the Herd might drag the game back into reach as the margin shrank 83-65.
Much of this came from the imposition of Marshall’s 7-foot-4 graduate center Matt Van Komen. After a foul on senior forward Wyatt Fricks, Van Komen palmed the ball and slammed it off the floor in frustration, receiving a chorus of boos from the crowd. A few possessions later, he ducked under the glass for a rim-rocking reverse dunk over freshman center Johann Grünloh that momentarily quieted the crowd.
That was when De Ridder — who had been stacking points all game — seemed to take things personally. The Belgian forward snapped Virginia’s field-goal drought with a right-wing three with six minutes to go, and bullied his way into the paint for a second-chance jumper, sending the Cavaliers to the century mark at 100-74. Those shots were sandwiched by a pair of threes from graduate point-guard Dallin Hall, whose role had primarily been as a facilitator early game.
“When Dallin looks for a shot, that opens up everything else,” Thomas said. “So when teams disrespect his scoring ability, he'll make them pay, like he did tonight.”
The final exclamation point from Virginia came as sophomore guard Elijah Gertrude leaked out in transition for a soaring alley-oop dunk off a spin and feed from freshman guard Chance Mallory, and the clock ran down with the ball in Gertrude’s hand for a game that will go down as a feather in Odom’s hat.
“You have to have the combination of offense and defense to be at your best, and certainly, our guys did a nice job in that first half,” Odom said. “When we got away from that in the second half, you can see how it can impact you overall. Although our shot selection wasn't great, we weren't getting as clean looks as we wanted to in the middle portion of that half … But thought our guys did a nice job of righting the ship there and finishing in a positive way.”
The Cavaliers will head to White Sulphur Springs, W.V., Nov. 21-23 for their first bout of real competition against high-majors Northwestern and Butler.
“I think especially against better opponents, we need to finish,” Grünloh said. “[We] have to play 40 minutes like we played the first half today.”
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