Virginia returns four of the top six scorers from last season’s 30-game team, including its best player, Thijs De Ridder. If you’ve forgotten that, you were probably reminded of it Sunday, when the Cavaliers fielded a starting lineup featuring those four players and then used them to embarrass Arkansas at Capital One Arena in Washington.
Final score: Virginia 91, Arkansas 72.
The Cavaliers made 12 3-pointers, shot 46 percent from the field, led by as many as 27 points and earned an easy victory over an Arkansas team picked to finish third in what is considered the sport’s best conference (SEC). De Ridder finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds. If someone at Duke doesn’t win ACC Player of the Year, they probably will.
As Matt Norlander and I discussed on Sunday’s episode of the Eye On College Basketball podcast, among the interesting things about Virginia is how second-year coach Ryan Odom has built a top-10 team even though the price tag tied to his roster doesn’t even rank in the top 30 nationally, according to a recent study Norlander conducted alongside Isaac Trotter.
How did UVA do it?
The answer is in the first sentence of this post. Virginia returned four of its top six scorers, which is notable because what we’ve learned in this new era of legalized fee-for-play is that it’s generally much less expensive to bring back a star than to acquire a new star from another school from the transfer portal. So, by having to come back stars instead of incoming stars, Virginia got its money’s worth in building this team, and that’s why it’s reasonable to think the Cavaliers can compete with Duke and Louisville atop the ACC even though those two schools spent more than $5 million building Virginia’s roster this season.
A rare rematch of the opening week’s title game comes with a familiar warning: UConn is once again a national title threat
Matt Norlander
UVA is No. 9 in the daily CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 college basketball rankings updated Monday morning, where Florida remains No. 1 and Duke remains No. 2 with interesting tests expected for both. Florida will play Florida State on Tuesday in a game scheduled to tip off at 6 p.m. ET. An hour later, the Champions Classic will begin with Duke vs. Michigan State.
And that’s not the only good thing coming Tuesday.
Illinois at Texas Tech is a matchup between the teams ranked No. 3 and No. 16 in the Top 25 and 1. Kansas-Kentucky, in Game 2 of the Champions Classic, is a matchup between the teams ranked No. 5 and No. 19 in the Top 25 and 1. And Memphis at Vanderbilt is a matchup between the teams ranked 26th and 24th in the Top 25 and 1, respectively.
What a great night of hoops this is going to be, one that guarantees that the Top 25 And 1 won’t be the same Wednesday morning as Tuesday morning. I can’t wait to see how everything plays out. Enjoy – then join Norlander and I early Wednesday when we recap everything on the Eye On College Basketball podcast.
Rankings Top 25 And 1
Gn sports
