Riding a five-game winning streak after a hot-shooting second-half performance against Maryland, No. 23 Virginia will host American University on Monday to finish its nonconference schedule.
Virginia (10-1) comes off an 80-72 win on Saturday over former conference foe Maryland. After a 24-19 first half, perhaps more reminiscent of the days of former coach Tony Bennett than current boss Ryan Odom, the Cavs outscored the Terrapins 56-53 in the second half to claim the victory.
Virginia, in typical fashion, played nine players between 16 and 28 minutes to secure the win. Starter Dallin Hall had a season-high 20 points on 8-for-8 shooting and also dished six assists.
Reserves Jacari White and Devin Tills also stood out. White contributed 15 points, a trio of both 3-pointers and steals, while dropping nine of those points in a 15-2 run that pushed a 35-33 Maryland lead to a 48-37 Virginia advantage. Tillis added 10 points on 4-for-4 shooting from the field.
Odom was pleased with his team’s success, despite the uneven performance. Maryland shot 12-for-29 from 3-point range and outrebounded Virginia 41-34, but the Cavaliers did force 19 turnovers while committing only eight.
“This is not a game of perfect and other teams prepare and do really well,” Odom said. “I thought our guys, relatively speaking, did a nice job to dig it out.”
Virginia uses its nine primary players for between 16 to 27 minutes per game, with each player averaging over six points. The Cavaliers’ top scorer is Belgian freshman Thijs De Ridder, who averages 15.1 points and 5.8 rebounds per game, while shooting 39.3% from 3-point range. De Ridder had just five points in the Maryland game on 1-for-8 shooting.
Starter Malik Thomas (11.1 ppg) joins reserves Chance Mallory (11.2 ppg) and White (10.9 ppg) to form UVA’s core of top scorers.
American (7-5) had won three in a row but dropped a 105-83 decision at VCU on Thursday. The Eagles count eight freshmen among the 13 players who have seen playing time this season. Five Eagles reached double digits in scoring, but the team allowed VCU to shoot 56.7% and was outrebounded 43-26.
Duane Simpkins is in his third season as American’s coach and took the team to the NCAA Tournament a season ago.
“I thought our guys were resilient and played hard,” Simpkins said after the VCU loss. “If you had told me that we were going to shoot (40.3%) from the field and have nine turnovers, I would have said we’ve probably got a chance to win this game. But they shot just as well as we did from three.”
American drilled 14 3-point shots despite leading scorer Madden Collins failing to make a 3-pointer and scoring 10 points on just 3-for-14 shooting. Wyatt Nausadis had 17 points, including 3-for-5 from long range, and Geoff Sprouse tallied 16 points, taking all nine of his shots from 3-point range and knocking down five.
American will move to Patriot League play following this final nonconference game.
