By Jerry Ratcliffe
There was a time in a younger Ryan Odom’s early days as a head coach when offense was king. Defense was, well, an afterthought.
Certainly that’s no longer the case. In fact, Odom’s 14th-ranked Virginia squad (16-2) is the No. 1 team in the ACC as far as field-goal percentage defense goes, holding collective opponents to only .381.
Part of that success is because of 7-foot, twin towers Ugonna Onyeso and Johann Grünloh. The duo swats away shots like a ceiling fan in a roomful of balloons (more on that later in the story).
Coach Jeff Jones, who has known Odom since his childhood, tells this story about when Odom had taken over the head coaching duties at UMBC.
“When he first went to UMBC, I was at Old Dominion and we were going to play at Towson,” Jones explained. “We practiced at UMBC and Dave Odom (Ryan’s dad) was there. Dave pulled me aside — he uses me sometimes to deliver messages to Ryan, noting that Ryan wouldn’t listen to his father — and Dave wanted me to talk to him about they’ve got to be better defensively.”
Ryan got the message and his various teams’ defenses at UMBC, Utah State, VCU and Virginia have been solid ever since.
Part of that defensive philosophy is fullcourt pressing to slow down other teams, but one facet of defense that Odom hasn’t had in the past is giant rim protectors like Grünloh, a freshman from Germany, and Onyenso, a senior who brought years of experience from Kentucky and Kansas State with him to Charlottesville.
On the strength of those two centers, Virginia ranks No. 2 in the ACC in blocked shots with 116 in 18 games (6.45 per outing). UVA is also No. 3 in the entire nation in blocked shots, behind only Syracuse (118 blocks) and Georgia (137). That’s No. 3 nationally out of 361 schools.
Onyenso and Grünloh are tied for No. 2 in the ACC in blocked shots with 45 each (2.50 per game). They’re also tied for 12th nationally with the same numbers.
Virginia’s ability to not only block, but to alter shots, was a big deal in road games last week at Louisville and SMU.
“Just keeping a body in front like that, that’s the most important thing, is if you can force your opponents to shoot over a body, whether it’s 7-foot or 5-10, the numbers will go down,” Odom said this week. “They just will. It’s harder to make shots over really quality contests.
“And so that’s something that we’re constantly talking to our guys about is, it’s part of being solid on defense, and it gives you a better chance to rebound, too. But ideally, we don’t like teams catching it that close. But we do have two really good big guys back there to help us.”
Onyenso:
Grünloh:
