De Ridder paces UVa again as Cavalier beat NC Central

UVa rolled past NC Central on Friday night 81-62, improving to 2-0 on the season and in the Ryan Odom era. 

The Hoos led wire-to-wire, playing as significant favorites for the second straight game. 

And also for the second game in a row, Belgian forward Thijs De Ridder was the team’s top scorer, posting 20 points in the comfortable victory. De Ridder begins his Cavalier career with two straight 20+ point games after putting up 21 on Monday against Rider. Malik Thomas was quiet in his Cavalier debut on Monday, but bounced back with a 12-point, six-assist game against the Eagles. Junior wing Sam Lewis added 10 points as well, including three from long range. 

UVa received solid contributions from the bench in the win. The Wahoos finished the game with 32 bench points; Jacari White scored nine off the bench, while Chance Mallory added eight and center Ugonna Onyenso scored 10 points with seven boards.

Virginia struggled with 3-point shooting in the opener but shot it better on Friday night, making 14 of 36 looks from the beyond the arc (38.9%). UVa had a massive edge on the glass, too, out-rebounding the Eagles 48 to 34. The Hoos had a solid assist-to-turnover ratio in the victory, with 22 assists to just 12 giveaways. 

Virginia blistered the NC Central defense out of the gate, opening up a 15-2 lead through five minutes, with four made 3s including two for White off the bench. 

The big early lead allowed Odom to experiment with lineups and rotate players in and out.  Onyenso and Johann Grunloh shared to court for a time, forcing the Eagles to guard two 7-footers simultaneously. UVa took advantage, and a Onyenso put back to give the Hoos a 26-5 lead with 11:14 left in the first half forced NC Central coach Levelle Moton to take his first timeout. 

The Hoos had a late first-half drought, missing nine shots in a row and allowing NC Central to cut the lead from 26 down to 16 and forcing an Odom timeout up 36-20 with 3:23 left until halftime. Virginia pushed the lead back out to 21, but a bucket by NC Central’s Khouri Carvey made it 42-25 Hoos at the break. 

De Ridder got UVa going to start the second half, scoring eight points in the first 3:55 of the half to extend Virginia’s lead back to 23 points and force an NC Central timeout. From there, UVa was on cruise control, keeping the lead between 20 and 30 points for most of the half, leading by as many as 30.

Gage Lattimore had a game-high 22 points in the loss for NC Central (0-2), with Carvey adding 18.

Forward Devin Tillis missed his second straight game with a knee injury. There is no timetable for his return. 

UVa is back in action on Tuesday night, when the Wahoos host Hampton at JPJ (9 p.m., ACC Network).