CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. - Virginia didn’t exactly come out flying Friday night, but the No. 9 Cavaliers still ended up where they wanted to be: comfortably in control at John Paul Jones Arena.
The Cavaliers shook off a sluggish opening stretch, pulled away in the second half and rolled past Northeastern 97-72 in front of an announced crowd of 12,620. The Huskies stayed within seven at halftime and even trimmed the margin to five early after the break, but Virginia took over from there.
Second-year point guard Chance Mallory helped steady the response and finished with 20 points, five assists and four steals in 27-plus minutes.
“Everybody knew what the job had to be for the second half, and we did it,” Mallory said.
He also pointed to the Cavaliers’ first-half issues.
“I feel like our energy was really low in that first half,” Mallory said.
Northeastern leaned on Rashad King and Louis Bond, who combined for 49 points on 17-for-30 shooting, to keep things interesting early. But Virginia’s depth and physicality eventually wore the Huskies down.
Sam Lewis matched Mallory with 20 points and added four assists, while Thijs De Ridder scored 16, Johann Grünloh had 13 and Elijah Gertrude chipped in 10.
Virginia head coach Ryan Odom said the challenge was managing everything his team is being asked to do.
“We’re asking them to do a lot of things,” Virginia head coach Ryan Odom said of his players. “We're asking them to press.
We're asking them to crash. We're asking them to play transition defense, and pick and roll, and share the ball, and all these different things, and play fast, and it can be tiring.
I thought our guys did a nice job of fighting through some of that fatigue, sticking together when it wasn't going great, and found a way to turn it in our favor.”
The Cavaliers’ offense caught fire after halftime, shooting 61.3% in the second half and 54% overall. Odom, though, said the plays that stood out most were the ones that didn’t show up in the box score.
He singled out hustle efforts from Mallory and Gertrude, including one sequence in which Gertrude, in Odom’s words, looked like “Superman diving towards the bench. I turned around and all of a sudden he was, like, parallel to the ground.”
Afterward, Virginia named the 6-foot-4 Gertrude its player of the game. He went 3 for 4 from 3-point range and added five rebounds, including three on the offensive glass.
“It’s awesome to see what he's been doing,” Mallory said of Gertrude, who missed the 2024-25 with a knee injury. “He's worked so hard on his game, especially his jumper.
So to see him consistently hit shots is awesome. Everybody knows how athletic he is, and he's really helping us on the defensive end as a spark off the bench, just creating skills, causing havoc, and knocking down shots.”
Gertrude had already shown flashes in Virginia’s three preseason exhibitions and scored eight points off the bench in Tuesday night’s season-opening win over Drexel.
“It really means a lot to me,” Gertrude said Friday night, “just knowing that the work is starting to pay off, everything that I've done [to overcome] the injuries that set me back, just being able to know that the hard work, the hours, the grind, the attention to detail, everything that I've done is starting to pay off.”
Northeastern coach Bill Coen was blunt afterward.
“I thought our guys played hard and competed,” Northeastern head coach Bill Coen said. “We were simply overmatched by a better team tonight. It’s a very talented group Coach Odom has, and they have the size, skill, depth and shooting.”
In Other News...
Virginia Faces A Revealing Early Test Against Caliparis New-Look Arkansas
A neutral-site meeting in Washington, D.C., gives Virginia an early chance to see where it stands against a completely different kind of challenge. No. 12 Arkansas arrives with the kind of defensive pressure that can turn a game choppy in a hurry, while No. 9 Virginia brings the steadier, veteran style that has long defined its best teams. It is the sort of matchup that can tell a lot about both programs before the schedule really starts to tighten.
John Calipari has rebuilt Arkansas around a young roster, and Ryan Odoms Cavaliers will have to handle that energy without getting dragged into mistakes. Both coaches have already pointed to the strengths and the growing pains in front of them, which is what makes this one so intriguing: Virginia gets a revealing test against a team that is still taking shape, but one that already looks capable of making life uncomfortable for anyone. [Read more 🡒]
Virginias Rotation Question Is Only Getting Bigger For Ryan Odom
Through Virginias first two games against Drexel and Northeastern, Ryan Odom has leaned into a deep bench and treated the early schedule like a laboratory, mixing and matching lineups to see what sticks. The Cavaliers have already gotten encouraging flashes from players such as Sam Lewis and Gertrude, while Nolan Adekunle has emerged as a steady piece on the wing, giving the staff at least one spot it can feel good about as the season settles in.
The bigger question now is how the rest of the rotation takes shape, especially with several freshmen and transfers still looking for a meaningful foothold. Odom has plenty of season left to sort it out, and Virginias depth means there should be chances for someone to seize a role, but the early returns have only made the competition for minutes more crowded. [Read more 🡒]
Virginia Faces An Early Test That Could Define This Team
Virginias early-season schedule is about to offer a much clearer read on where this group stands. A non-conference meeting with Arkansas in Washington, D.C., brings together two teams that have opened well, with Virginia leaning on its usual defensive identity and an experienced starting five while Arkansas brings the kind of offensive punch that can stress a game in a hurry under John Calipari.
For Virginia, the matchup is less about the familiar all-time edge in the series and more about whether the Cavaliers can sustain their level when the game gets stretched and the rotations get tested. The starters give Tony Bennetts team a solid foundation, but this is the sort of game that can expose whether the supporting cast is ready to hold up when the pace and pressure rise. [Read more 🡒]