In a banquet hall turned basketball arena at the Greenbrier Resort, some 1,200 people filed in — mostly wearing Virginia colors — to watch Virginia Coach Ryan Odom’s squad take on its first power-conference opponent of the season.
That opponent was a big and physical Northwestern team, better offensively and defensively than any opponent Virginia had faced thus far. In a game that remained razor-thin for pretty much the duration of play, the Cavaliers (5-0, 0-0 ACC) won the battle over the Wildcats (4-1, 0-0 B10), 83-78.
“We knew it was going to be a big-time battle,” Odom said. “I think it was just a great college basketball game all around, back and forth. Had a lot of drama, players making big-time plays throughout. It was a really physical game.”
The game was led in scoring by freshman forward Thijs De Ridder who, in 27 minutes of play, tallied 26 points on 9-15 shooting and sank eight of nine free throws. He added eight rebounds before fouling out. Northwestern got its points from its second and third leading scorers — the short and scrappy junior guard Jayden Reid scored 25, while the dominant athletic force of junior forward Arrinten Page scored 20.
Of Virginia’s 83 points, 30 came at the free throw line. De Ridder’s aggressive interior game got him there many times, but the Cavaliers’ leading free-throw shooter was freshman guard Chance Mallory, who shot 10 and made nine. Mallory and De Ridder combined for 42 points and 16 of Virginia’s 49 rebounds.
The game tested Virginia in specific areas, too. The Cavaliers managed only to shoot 5-24 from three, one of their greatest attributes letting them down. Odom attributed it to the Wildcats’ fast and aggressive defense.
“They did a great job of pick-and-roll defense,” Odom said. “And they got back to shooters quickly. You saw in the first half we had three assists, and I think five turnovers. That’s rare for us. But you have to be able to win in different ways.”
It was visible from the get-go that the game would become a brawl, with the first half being neck-and-neck from the jump. Northwestern played physical and aggressive defense, blitzing ball handlers on screens and closing out quickly on three-point attempts. Virginia reached its highest lead of the night — a whopping eight points — with just over a minute left in the half, and led 40-36 at the intermission after four quick points by Reid.
The Wildcats got off to a fast start in the second — a 19-8 run through the first four and a half minutes for a seven-point lead. Reid and Page accounted for 12 of those 19 points, and continued to be the main drivers of the Northwestern offense for the rest of the game.
The last 10 minutes of play remained stuck at a one-possession game, each side reaching a four-point lead only once before the last minute. Most of both teams’ points came from the charity stripe, but they closed out the game 1-10 from the field. De Ridder fouled out with just under six minutes left of play, and Mallory followed suit a few minutes later.
Operating without its two leading scorers, Virginia kept the lead steady by hitting free throws and hauling in clutch rebounds. Graduate guard Dallin Hall played a quiet game through the first 35 minutes — save for one three in transition — but he scored a moving three off the catch with fewer than three minutes on the clock to make it a two-possession game in the closing minutes. Hall then hit five of six free throws in the last minute of play, including two off a transition attempt caused by a blocked corner three point attempt by Grünloh.
“[Hall] needs to be confident in himself,” Odom said. “Because he’s so good. And when he’s tentative he sometimes hurts himself. To watch him snap out of it was really gratifying.”
Virginia held Northwestern’s top player, senior forward Nick Martinelli, to nine points on a paltry 3-12 shooting, in a game-leading 38 minutes. De Ridder held his own against Martinelli’s funky drives, preventing easy rim attempts and holding him to a season-low three rebounds.
“I was locked in,” De Ridder said. “He’s probably the best scorer [in] his conference, and we knew that. It wasn’t just me, it was the whole team. ”
In terms of learning experiences, few things could have gone better for Odom and his team. Adding a win over a power-conference opponent in a game in which the threes were simply not falling, while suffocating one of the game’s top scorers and weathering a tough and aggressive defense, is a positive result from a markedly messy game.
“You want to see how your team is going to respond to big moments,” Odom said. “And I think we saw both teams respond really well to big moments.”
To add to that positive trend, graduate forward Devin Tillis made his debut after a knee surgery earlier in the season prevented him from playing in Virginia’s first four games. He tallied six minutes of play, adding only a rebound to the box score, but Odom said he has been practicing well and will continue to ease back into the rotation.
“This is a real, big-time matchup,” Odom said. “And I went back and forth on whether to put him in there or not at all … really pleased to have him be able to get back out there with us.”
The Cavaliers return to action Sunday, in an early-afternoon matchup against Butler. The Bulldogs (4-1, 0-0 Big East) are coming off of their own close win, over South Carolina, leading the entire game on the way to a 79-72 win. After a physical matchup with Martinelli, De Ridder will likely face another top player in senior forward Michael Ajayi, who had 15 points and 14 rebounds against the Gamecocks (4-1, 0-0 SEC).
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