Following Virginia's 89-60 win over Drexel, Coach Ryan Odom fielded questions from the media.
"That's what I was hoping for ," Odom said postgame. "Yeah, there's no question. All coaches hope for your team to come out ready to play, and I think our guys were energetic. They were enthusiastic. They were playing well together. They were playing physical, playing fast."
In particular, Thijs De Ridder scored 12 points in the first two and a half minutes. It is hard to envision a better start than that.
"[De Ridder] made some shots," Odom said. "[We] were doing the little things, crashing the glass. I mean, Thijs flew in from the three-point line on the left side and got an offensive rebound. They were having to reset their offense some in terms of taking it out of bounds full court. [We] got several deflections there that weren't steals, but they ended up having to take it out later on."
After the first 10 minutes (and change) of play, the Cavaliers led 30-9. Men's basketball is played in halves, but if it was played in quarters, Virginia would have averaged fewer than 20 points per quarter for the rest of the game.
"I like the aggressiveness. I was hoping for more at the beginning of the second half, and we didn't really see it. You have to give Drexel credit - they came out and were more physical, and we settled for poor shots and weren't great in the half court. And we certainly have got to get we got to get better there. We can't play that way out of halftime when we played a pretty good half overall. Got to be able to to do it again. And thankfully, the guys did a nice job to to finish it out."
Odom said he hated that he didn't get Carter Lang, Desmond Roberts, Quincy Watson and Nick Rotter involved. However, the rest of the team (minus Owen Odom) got to play Tuesday night.
At the same time, the back of the rotation got to get involved.
"We've got a lot of guys that need need some reps to be able to show kind of what they can do," Odom said. "I think it's certainly it's great to have all these guys back. I mean, that goes without saying. You know, we love having all these guys back, but the bench is going to be important."
Testing the bench was crucial for Odom and his staff. It was arguably a focus, as no starter played more than 30 minutes.
Last season, Virginia's bench was made of a few psuedo-starters (Mallory, Jacari White and Ugonna Onyenso) plus Devin Tillis. That's it.
This year, though, the bench should be deeper - but maybe not as deep.
"These guys are different. It's not what we had last year," Odom said. "They're good in their own way and different in their own way. I mean, you saw Jurian [Dixon] really pressure the ball and be active. You saw him crashing the glass and and and doing some really good things."
Odom also elaborated on the rest of the bench.
"I thought Elijah [Gertrude] was very good tonight," Odom said. "[Dixon] was excellent in his minutes, and I thought Martin [Carrere] had moments as well. Kalu [Anya] certainly did. He played under control. I wish he would have taken a couple of those open shots that were out there. But the reality is they they have to bring energy off the bench."
Odom's Cavaliers have one more tune-up against Northeastern Friday before taking on No. 12 Arkansas. That Friday game will be very telling as to how Virginia attacks the Razorbacks.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/college/virginia as Everything Important Ryan Odom Said After Win vs Drexel: What It Really Means .
