By Jerry Ratcliffe

Two former VCU head coaches, Virginia’s Ryan Odom and Dayton’s Anthony Grant, will face one another on a neutral court in Charlotte, N.C., at high noon Saturday (ESPN2).

Odom’s Cavaliers (7-1) are coming off their best game of the season Wednesday night, an 88-69 drubbing of host Texas in the ACC/SEC Challenge. Grant’s Flyers (7-2) also have impressive wins this season over Georgetown (84-79) and Marquette (77-71).

The two teams meet at Charlotte’s Spectrum Center, which was supposed to be a neutral court, but that won’t be the case due to Virginia’s football team playing Duke at 8 p.m. that night for the ACC Championship, also in Charlotte.

“We’ve got a great opportunity and a great challenge in front of us going on the road,” Grant said after Tuesday’s 74-55 win over East Tennessee State. “I keep saying it’s on the road. It’s a neutral game, but I think we all know that their football team just made it to the conference championship, and I think they’ll have a pretty good crowd at the game, so it’ll be a road game.”

Dayton’s two losses this season were against Cincinnati and to No. 9 BYU (83-79).

Virginia is ranked No. 24 in the KenPom ratings and No. 15 in the NET, compared to Dayton’s No. 62 and 69, respectively. KenPom gives UVA a 67-percent chance of winning Saturday’s game against the Flyers.

Neither team will have the opportunity to practice in the Spectrum due to a Friday night country music concert for the band Alabama.

Virginia ranks No. 4 in the nation in offensive rebounds (16.3) and is 6-0 when outrebounding an opponent. The Cavaliers are averaging a program-record 28 3-point attempts per game and have shot 30 or more triples in three games.

Jacari White leads UVA with 19 3-pointers, followed by Malik Thomas’ 13, and Sam Lewis and Chance Mallory with 12 each.