CVILLE RIGHT NOW<\/a>) \u2013 Ugonna Onyenso hasn\u2019t hit a single 3-pointer in three college basketball seasons. In fact, the 6-foot-11 transfer center never even attempted a shot from beyond the arc over 64 career games at Kentucky and Kansas State.<\/p>\n\u201cI would guess he hasn\u2019t in practice, either,\u201d first-year Virginia coach Ryan Odom joked Wednesday. \u201cMaybe in high school.\u201d<\/p>\n
But when Odom turned his new roster loose on the court during the offseason, he took note of Onyenso\u2019s outside shooting touch.<\/p>\n
And Johann Grunloh\u2019s toughness crashing the glass. And Chance Mallory\u2019s instincts pursuing long rebounds.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all a product of Odom\u2019s approach to getting to know his roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot put them in a box,\u201d Odom said, during a 30-minute session with local media. \u201cWe wanted to allow them to play free of fear, of failure. Show us what you can do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Odom said that, particularly over the summer, the focus was on building team chemistry and getting the new players comfortable with each other and at UVA.<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers return just three players from last year\u2019s team \u2013 guard Elijah Gertrude, wing Desmond Roberts and forward Carter Lang. Roberts and Lang are walk-ons.<\/p>\n
The approach gave the coaching staff a true chance to evaluate what type of players it had to work with \u2013 and gave those players a true clean slate to impress their new coaches.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you begin to put them in roles right away, initially, you come in with these preconceived notions of how you think they should play,\u201d Odom said. \u201cYou might miss something.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as he looks to rebuild the Virginia program, Odom has been meticulous in his efforts to not a miss a thing.<\/p>\n
The coach, known for his pressure-defense that he employed at VCU \u2013 and Utah State and UMBC, before that \u2013 didn\u2019t even begin working on the press during the summer. Though, he said, he did jump into it immediately this fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cRight away,\u201d Odom said. \u201cWe call it, \u2018Hammer Up.\u2019 Right away. First practice.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cavaliers play two pre-season exhibitions, playing Vanderbilt in Nashville on Oct. 16 and hosting Villanova on Oct. 24. Odom said he\u2019s an advocate of adding more preseason games in the future.<\/p>\n
Virginia\u2019s season opener will be Nov. 3 at home against Rider, the game that will mark Odom\u2019s Cavalier debut.<\/p>\n
Odom said Utah transfer guard Dallin Hall has quickly emerged as a team leader, in large part due to the consistency of his practice effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just a trust there,\u201d Odom said.<\/p>\n
Devin Tillis, a wing who played at UC Irvine last year, and Malik Thomas, a transfer guard from San Francisco, have asserted themselves as vocal leaders, and DeRidder brings both passion and high-level experience from his time in Europe.<\/p>\n
Identifying strong leaders is something Odom did early at his previous coaching stops. Outside of that, he said there isn\u2019t much similar between the circumstances at UVA and what he took over at Utah State and VCU, where he quickly delivered the Aggies and Rams to NCAA Tournament appearances his second seasons at those schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis one\u2019s been a lot different,\u201d Odom said. \u201cWe have a totally new collection of guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
And, this offseason, he took the time to learn all about what they can do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As he looks to rebuild the Virginia basketball program, new coach Ryan Odom has been meticulous in his…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":216411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-216410","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115181928163774964","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}