UVA Basketball: What Ryan Odom did to slow down Bruce Thornton

At the 9:50 second half media timeout, Ohio State, up 59-53, had gotten 26 points from Bruce Thornton, on 11-of-freakin’-14 shooting.

It was obvious: gotta do something different.

“Coach Diebler was putting him in some good spots, and he was going to try to take it home, you know, for him, and so, we had to put two on the ball there and take a chance,” Virginia coach Ryan Odom said, detailing what went on in the huddle during the TV commercial break.

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Odom said he’d had his guys practice doubling the ball to have that in the package to try to counter Thornton, a senior who came in averaging 19.3 points per game, with good shooting numbers – 54.3 percent from the floor, 38.5 percent from three.

“Not something that we do all the time, but we certainly have it in our package, and needed to do that in this situation,” Odom said.

The risk: “three-point shooting, you know, scramble situations, the bigs getting behind, you know, at the rim, and putting pressure on the rim, I mean, all the things that we all try to do on offense,” Odom said.

The gamble paid off.

Thornton missed six of his last seven shots and had a turnover in the final 9:50, and his teammates didn’t step up – Ohio State scored just two points over the next 9:17, and UVA went on a 13-2 run to take control on the way to closing out the 70-66 win.

Thornton finished with 28 points on 12-of-21 shooting, still good numbers, obviously.

“I think we did a good job of just forcing him to take tough twos, even though he made a lot of them,” said Virginia guard Malik Thomas, who played a role in the late-game strategy. “Our goal was to just continue to make shots hard for him, crowd him, give him different looks, whether that’s bringing two on the ball or one-on-one or help and being in the gaps and just bothering him the best we can.

“I think we did a great job. Even though he ended up with you know, 28 points, it was a hard 28 points, and I think our guys did a good job of just making everything hard for him,” said Thomas, who had 13 points and six boards in 22 minutes.

Point guard Dallin Hall was also part of the effort to try to slow down Thornton.

“Executing some of the coverages, mixing up our ball screen coverages, was super helpful,” said Hall, who had a quiet night – seven points, one rebound, one assist, three turnovers in 31 minutes, but his runout layup with 1:11 to go after a Sam Lewis steal at midcourt gave Virginia a 65-61 lead, and important breathing room.