Virginia is headed into the season with a spotlight that won’t let up.
At ACC Tipoff in Charlotte, Ryan Odom made it clear his group is getting the full stage this year, and the broadcast schedule backs that up. The Cavaliers have 30 games set for national broadcasts, with only one game currently slated for streaming: the Nov. 13 meeting with Maryland on Peacock.
“All players want to play in big games, all coaches want to coach in big games, and we've certainly provided these guys with that opportunity this year,” Odom said.
Odom was joined by Thijs De Ridder, Chance Mallory, Sam Lewis and Johann Grunloh at the event, but Virginia’s profile wasn’t the only storyline pulling attention around the room.
Duke, which has built the last two seasons around freshman stars Cooper Flagg and Cameron Boozer, may be taking a different path this time. The Blue Devils still have a highly regarded newcomer in 7-foot freshman Cameron Williams, the No. 4 overall prospect in the 2026 high school recruiting class, but Jon Scheyer suggested the immediate burden on that freshman group may look different.
“I don't know if they're going to have an immediate impact at the level that we've seen. I mean, we've seen historic impact with our freshmen, but they're going to be contributors to winning,” Scheyer said Wednesday.
He pointed to the experience already in the building and the way the roster has blended together.
“I think they really have had -- they're fortunate they have more experience in the building to look to where guys can help guide them. I think there's been great -- there's not separation between freshmen and upperclassmen.
I think these guys have really connected. They're going to grow and be big parts of what we do going forward.”
Asked whether he was ready for a different kind of challenge, Scheyer didn’t hesitate.
“Am I looking forward to not coaching Cooper Flagg of Cameron Boozer? No,” he said. “But I do enjoy challenges.”
Scheyer also touched on the reality of college sports in the transfer era, noting his appreciation for players who decided to remain in the program or come in as recruits and transfers.
Patrick Ngongba framed Scheyer’s decision to stay at Duke in simple terms.
“I guess we see it as him choosing Duke,” Ngongba said. “We see it, and we try not to let it affect us, but after the season, it means he’s committed to us.”
North Carolina’s storyline looked different, with new coach Michael Malone bringing an NBA background into Chapel Hill after the Tar Heels turned to the pro ranks the way their football program did a year earlier. Malone has taken a noticeably different approach than Bill Belichick, showing up around campus and making a point to get around the broader athletic department.
He said he has tried to attend as many UNC sporting events as possible, beginning with the College World Series in June soon after his hire. Malone also drew a crowd recently when about 150 former Tar Heel players returned to Chapel Hill.
Among them was Caleb Wilson, the fourth overall pick in the 2026 NBA draft, who asked to come to practice the next day.
“I told him, ‘Don’t ever ask me that question again,’ “ Malone said. “ ’Of course you can attend practice.
You can run it if you want to.’ ”
Malone’s first transfer addition was point guard Neo Avdalas, a native of Greece who spent his freshman season at Virginia Tech before leaving. Avdalas said he never even discussed a return to Blacksburg with Mike Young.
Malone said he wasn’t familiar with the names when the transfer process began, but film quickly sold him on Avdalas.
“I had no idea who any of these [transfers] were,” Malone admitted, “but as I watched film, what struck me about him was his tremendous positional size (6-7), and his ability to make everybody better. He’s a winning player, and he’s poised to have an outstanding season.”
He also noted that his years coaching international players left him with a useful skill set in Chapel Hill.
Having coached pro players from all over the world, Malone said he knows “a few words in a lot of languages,” and texted Avdalas “happy Easter” in Greek as a way of building a connection.
In Other News...
Virginia O-Line Faces Urgent Pressure After Pass Protection Collapse
Virginias offensive line spent the early part of the week digging through the film after a rough night in Tallahassee, where protection issues became impossible to ignore in a loss at Florida State. The Cavaliers are trying to sort out what broke down so badly and how to get the front five back on track, because pass protection is now a central issue for a unit that has to hold up if the offense is going to settle in.
The challenge is not just about cleaner technique or better communication, either, because the looks Virginia faced kept changing and made the operation harder to sort out on the fly. With the Seminoles mixing up their approach and testing the Cavaliers in different ways, the next step for Virginia is finding answers quickly enough to keep the problem from carrying over into the rest of the schedule. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Faces An Early Syracuse Test That Could Set The Tone
Virginias 2026 start has already gone sideways sooner than expected, with two losses arriving before the Cavaliers could really settle into the kind of opening that preseason models had hinted at. Even so, the next few weeks still carry real weight, and the visit from Syracuse stands out as the kind of game that can either steady things or deepen the unease around a team trying to find its footing.
Syracuse brings its own uncertainty into the matchup, with recent roster moves and a quarterback situation that has changed quickly from one week to the next. For Virginia, the bigger issue is less about the numbers in any projection and more about whether this group can turn a frustrating early stretch into something more stable before the season starts to slip further out of reach. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia May Have A Big Year 2 Advantage After Last Seasons Letdown
Virginias rough ending last season still lingers, and Ryan Odom knows how quickly a promising year can turn after a bracket upset or a second-round exit. As he looked back on both the 2018 loss to UMBC and the recent defeat to Tennessee, the Virginia coach also sounded noticeably more confident about what comes next, with the Cavaliers bringing back a group of players who give this roster a much different feel entering Year 2 under his watch.
The continuity matters in a way it did not a year ago, when Odom was still trying to piece together a foundation. Virginia is set to open Nov. 3 against Drexel, and the early sense around the program is that experience and cohesion could help the Cavaliers avoid some of the growing pains that cost them before. Whether that translates into the kind of season they believe they can have will depend on more than optimism, but for now the roster looks far steadier than it did when the last campaign slipped away. [Read more 🡒]