By Jerry Ratcliffe
Marshall arrived at John Paul Jones Arena on Saturday undefeated and full of confidence, a middle-of-the-pack Sun Belt team with designs on success.
Then the Thundering Herd ran squarely into a rolling ball of butcher knives.
When Virginia coach Ryan Odom was piecing his Cavaliers team together from every corner of the country and from overseas, Saturday’s first half must have been what he envisioned for his arsenal of weapons.
UVA blitzed the Herd with a JPJ record of 61 points in the first half en route to a 104-78 landslide victory over Marshall. In those first 20 minutes, Odom’s team made 62.5 percent of their field-goal attempts (20 of 32) and 54 percent of their 3’s (7 for 13) to lead 61-33 at the break.
It all started with Malik Thomas scoring 13 of Virginia’s first 21 points, making all 5 shots he attempted, including all 3 triples (he finished with a season-high 18 points). It ended with a 15-0 run over a two-minute span that left Marshall stunned, trailing 53-21 with 4:19 to go in the half.
Wahoo fans, accustomed over the decade-and-a-half of Bennett Ball’s snail tempo, struggled to digest the bombardment. More often than not, it seemed Virginia could only put up 61 points in an entire game, let alone by halftime.
Eight of the nine players Odom put on the floor in the first half scored at least 3 points. The collective depth is beginning to show itself four games (and two exhibitions) into the young season. Opponents wonder what hit them from Virginia’s inside-out party with big, physical dudes down on the block and myriad of shooters on the perimeter.
The depth is overwhelming, something Odom saw as he assembled a brand new team.
“Yeah, there’s no question about it,” Odom said afterward. “The depth is something that we’re going to have to lean on. We have a lot of different guys on the roster that can easily say, ‘Hey, I should be starting,’ and we have to get past that as a group, because it’s not about one individual, it’s aout the team.”
The coaching staff has “hammered” those thoughts home with the newcomers from the day they recruited them to the day they first set foot on campus.
Virginia’s players seem to have accepted that philosophy and have bonded into a close knit unit, willing to share the ball, knowing their time will come.
Such as point guard Dallin Hall, who prior to Saturday had primarily been concerned with distributing the ball and allowing others to shine. This time out, Hall broke out with 18 points (5 for 6 FG, 3 for 4 3-pointers, 5 of 6 free throws).
No jealousy. In fact, his teammates were joyous over his success.
“Extremely happy,” said Thomas. “I’ll start off by saying he’s the leader of assisting us and making sure everybody’s in order. He did a great job of staying aggressive. When Dallin looks for a shot, that opens up everything else like getting dump-downs to Johann and Thijs (De Ridder) and kick-outs to me.
“So when teams disrespect his scoring ability, he’ll make them pay like he did today.”
Johann Grünloh pointed out that Hall played 33 minutes (team-high), which showed how important the guard is to the team.
Thomas was 7 for 9 (4 of 5 from the arc) and was on fire early on, said he was aggressive out of the blocks and that the quick bucket sparked him.
“But it started on the defensive end for me,” Thomas said. “Coaches always talk about dog the ball, so I was just trying to harp on defense and then the offense really takes care of itself.”
He said there will be games where he’s on a hot streak and nights when shots don’t fall, but the objective is to stay aggressive.
While UVA’s big men, Grünloh, De Ridder (game-high 23 points) and Ugonna Onyenso (5 points) ruled the paint, it wasn’t a cakewalk because Marshall brought its own giant, 7-foot-4 Matt Van Komen, who posted a double-double (13 points, 11 rebounds) and hardly had to jump to dunk the ball.
Grünloh said he had played against 7-footers in Europe but described facing Van Komen as a learning experience for the future.
Marshall coach Corny Jackson said he totally underestimated Virginia’s physicality.
“They took us to the woodshed,” Jackson said. “They have a lot of weapons. They execute. They’re disciplined. We didn’t shoot the ball great (43.3), but [Virginia] caused a lot of that.”
Virginia, 4-0, doesn’t play again until Friday when the Cavaliers face Northwestern in the first of two games at the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., then Butler on Sunday afternoon.
