CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Taking a pass from Elijah Gertrude, off a steal, Malik Thomas drove to the rim, scored and drew a foul. He turned to the crowd and waved, exhorting them to be louder.

The moment was an example of what first-year coach Ryan Odom wanted to see Friday – his rebuilt Virginia basketball roster connecting with the John Paul Jones crowd both through its play and its personality. 

“This is your opportunity to connect with your new fans,” Odom said he told his players.

Thomas and the new-look Cavaliers introduced themselves with a 75-72 win over visiting Villanova on Friday night at John Paul Jones Arena in a preseason exhibition, leading for all but 20 seconds of the game.

Unlike last week’s trip to Vanderbilt, there were no gimmicks with the scoring system, just regular game-play in this one, Odom’s unofficial home debut.

The Cavaliers will do it for real on Nov. 3 against Rider.

“It’s nerve racking for the coaches to be on display this early, but it’s great for the fans,” Odom said. “With so many new faces on our roster here at the University of Virginia, it was important to get these guys out in front of our fans as quickly as we could.”

Dressed in a navy blue suit with a blue shirt and no tie, Odom watched his squad deliver on some of the foundational aspects of his style of play – sharing the ball on offense and pressuring it on defense. 

The Cavaliers got scoring from 11 players – 10 of whom were making their JPJ debuts – and assisted on 15 of 24 made baskets.

Virginia went 10 for 26 from 3-point range, with all 11 players who got in the game attempting at least one shot from beyond the arc, a signature of Odom’s offensive emphasis on spreading the floor and stretching defenses. 

Thomas, the San Francisco transfer, scored a team-high 16 points. UVA opened the game with a three-guard lineup of Thomas, BYU transfer point guard Dallin Hall and Toledo transfer wing Sam Lewis joined by a pair of international forwards in Thijs DeRidder and Johann Gruenloh. 

By game’s end, guard Jacari White (North Dakota State) had come off the bench to play nearly double Lewis’s minutes. Freshman point guard Chance Mallory, the former St. Anne’s-Belfield star, scored five points and had three rebounds and a pair of assists off the bench, sometimes spelling Hall, other times playing on the floor with him. 

DeRidder and Gruenloh combined for 20 points and 16 rebounds, and Kansas State transfer had seven points, two rebounds and three blocked shots in 17 minutes off the bench. 

Ten players logged double-digit minutes as Odom mixed and matched lineups all night long.

“I’ve got to see what these guys can do under the lights,” he said. “We want nine, 10 guys to be able to go in the game and help us. I think everybody that got in the game impacted the game in a positive way. It’s just we have to do it a little more consistently.”

Odom’s signature full-court press helped force 11 Villanova turnovers, which led to 19 Virginia points. 

But he also saw his team commit 18 turnovers of its own and allow Villanova to shoot 42% from the floor and score 36 points in the paint. 

Odom said he saw improvement in his team’s defensive work in the press and in its help defense in half-court situations. Still, the Cavaliers struggled when switching on defense and, despite blocking seven shots, never seemed to truly control the paint. 

They’ll have some time to get all that straightened out. After opening with Rider, UVA hosts North Carolina Central, Hampton and Marshall – not exactly a murderer’s row of foes out of the gate, before stepping up in competition when they take on Northwestern and Butler at the Greenbrier Tip-Off in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia on Nov. 21 and 23. 

If Friday’s exhibition was any indication, UVA will – as expected – play a much faster, high-scoring brand of basketball under Odom than it has for the past two decades. 

They’ll need to rekindle some of the past defensive prowess, however, to have the kind of season fans are hoping for. Gertrude’s steal that turned in Thomas’s crowd-pleasing bucket was a glimpse of what could be.

“It was great to get that and-1 and see the crowd, get them into it,” Thomas said. “Energy plays like that you dream of as a little kid.”