By Jerry Ratcliffe
Ryan Odom had been prodding his team all week to pick up the pace heading into Wednesday night’s game in Atlanta. How does 59 points in one half work?
Turns out, a trip to Georgia Tech was exactly what Virginia needed. After sweating close outcomes against mostly underdogs during a seven-game, road winning streak, the Wahoos turned Tech’s mostly-empty McCamish Pavilion into “Blowout City,” cruising to a 94-68 decision.
Could have more resembled NBA-esque numbers if Odom hadn’t called off the dogs. He surely didn’t want to run it up on Damon Stoudamire’s team. Georgia Tech has suffered enough during an eight-game losing streak that stretches back for over a month.
Longtime TV basketball analyst Dan Bonner shared with me last week that Jim Boeheim told him that “Virginia hasn’t played its best basketball yet,” during a recent Cavaliers game.
The first half Wednesday night was damn close. Virginia jumped all over the Yellow Jackets from the get-go and led wire-to-wire. It was 39-7 at one point as Wahoo marksmen let it fly from Bonusphere and raced down the floor converting Tech turnovers into easy-peasy layups. The defense was superb.
If you want to know what Ryan Odom basketball looks like, go replay the first half.
UVA was super aggressive, putting the offense in another gear as the Cavaliers ran masterful fast breaks and moved the ball around to find open 3-point shooters on the perimeter. Virginia had 10 triples by halftime, finished with 14.
Certainly, the Wahoos were on fire, and certainly, Georgia Tech is not a very good basketball team. However, UVA did exactly what the nation’s No. 14-ranked team is supposed to do … they took names and kicked butt. No goofing around, no allowing the Jackets to annoyingly hang around.
It was so lopsided early that Virginia’s biggest challenge in the second half was staying interested.
While Odom has always hung his hat on offense, his defense is where he wants this team’s identity to be.
Still, the coach was smiling as he watched his offense simply destroy the Georgians.
He had to be smiling over Thijs De Ridder’s performance: 22 points, 9 of 13 shots made, hit a 3-pointer, zero turnovers, converted a couple of steals into coast-to-coast layups or dunks.
Recent opponents had game-planned to negate De Ridder, double-teamed him, tried to take away his right. None of that mattered Wednesday night. De Ridder had at least three drives with his left hand for easy buckets.
“I think he was just motivated to play tonight,” Odom said of his tank-like Belgium guard.
The coach had told his leading scorer to “just let it go.”
Obviously, De Ridder got the message. UVA fans are hoping he taped that message to his locker ahead of Saturday’s game against invading Miami.
The ACC’s best rebounding team simply clobbered the Yellow Jackets on the boards, 51-34, just another facet of Virginia’s domination in Atlanta.
If there was any negative coming out of the win, it was Devin Tillis leaving the game, grimacing while holding his knee just under the 12-minute mark of the second half. He left the court, returned to sit out the second half, and Odom had no definitive diagnosis after the game, noting they would wait and allow Virginia’s team doctors to examine him back in Charlottesville on Thursday. We likely won’t know anything more until game day Saturday.
The blowout over Tech likely took some of the pressure off Virginia, allowing the Cavaliers to live a little. Exactly what this team needed going into a big one Saturday.
