The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - UVA (22-3, 10-2 ACC) Ranked #14 In Both Polls; Hoos On 6-Game Winning Streak, 6 ACC Tilts Left

Episode Date: February 17, 2026

The Jerry & Jerry Show headlines: UVA (22-3, 10-2 ACC) Ranked #14 In Both Polls Hoos On 6-Game Winning Streak, 6 ACC Tilts Left UVA at GA Tech (11-15, 2-11), 9PM, WED, ACCN Is Ryan Odom The ACC Coach Of The Year? Thijs De Ridder Single Digit Points In Last 3 Games UVA Bench Mob – Is This The Best Bench In ACC? What’s The Gap Between Duke & UVA Right Now? Inside The ACC: The Great, Good, Bad & Ugly Read Viewer & Listener Comments Live On-Air Jerry Ratcliffe & Jerry Miller were live on The Jerry & Jerry Show! The Jerry & Jerry Show airs live Tuesday from 10:15 am – 11:15 pm on The I Love CVille Network. Watch and listen to The Jerry & Jerry Show on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, iTunes, Apple Podcast, YouTube, Spotify, Fountain, Amazon Music, Audible and iLoveCVille.com.

Good Tuesday morning, guys. My name is Jerry Miller, and thank you kindly for joining us on the Jerry and Jerry Show. It's an absolute pleasure to connect with you guys through the I Love Seville Network on a program that spotlights a household name. Virginia Sports Hall of Famer Jerry Hootie Rackliff. His website, Jerry Rackcliffe.com, is a website I visit two to three times a day, literally every day. One of the first things I do in the morning is consider or look forward to the musings, the pontifications, the oponifications, the oponings. pining of a noteworthy and an accolated sports writer and commentator Jerry Rackleff himself. Today's program is an opportunity for him to shine and to analyze Virginia basketball in this athletic department from every angle. I believe it's his 52nd straight ACC basketball tournament that's on the near horizon. And goodness gracious, this Virginia basketball team has a lot to look forward to. They are riding a six-game winning street. Virginia is, is number 14 and both top 25 polls.

There are six ACC regular season tilts remaining for Ryan Odom's crew. They have a perennial ACC first team player and Taj de Ritter, although Derritter's performance of late

has included some single-digit outings. A lot we're going to talk about in the program with Jerry Rackliff. Judah Wickhauer is behind the camera. Judah, if we can go to the studio camera, and then a two-shot as we welcome our Virginia Sports Hall of Famer to the show, Jerry Hootie Rackleff. Good Tuesday morning, my friend.

Good to see you again, you and Judah. It's a pleasure. Weak flaws by fast, doesn't it? Yes, sir, it does. Yes, sir, it does. A six-game winning streak, 14 in both polls. Ryan Odom on the short list for ACC coach of the year. Probably the front runner.

Should be. Ryan Odom on the short list for national coach of the year, shortless. Looks like a first team, all-ACC performer potentially in DeRitter. And all rookie first team and chance Mallory.

And a bench that is as deep as any in the nation, my friend, scatter shooting with Jerry Rackleff. Where would you like to begin? Yeah. People continue to marvel over what Ryan Odom's built in such a short time. And we're doing a little

research. I saw something the other day where Miami was claiming that their coach Lucas, his name, I guess. Yep. It was the fastest first-year ACC head coach to get the 20 wins since Bill Guthridge in 1997-98 at Carolina when he suddenly took over for Dean Smith after a million years. but I looked into it and actually Ryan Odom is the fastest. Ryan Odom reached 20 wins in 24 games. Jai Lucas did it in 25 games.

So a little history there for Coach Odom. That's a pretty long span since 1997-98. And just another accolade for him. it was funny after he found, I don't know, he might have already known, but he was reminded that after beating Ohio State the other night, that he had broken Jeff Jones record for the most wins by a first-year Virginia head coach.

And he was almost apologetic for doing it because Jeff is his mentor and one of his best friends. for sure. Have you had an opportunity to bring that up with Jeff Jones on the J&J show? I haven't. I was going to. Will you do it? I'll do it this Thursday.

I'm sure Jeff Jones knows. I'm sure he did. Yeah. Well, Danny, his wife, tweeted that out that they were proud of Ryan for breaking it and for him to keep breaking it. And I'm sure he will. But yeah, he was in, I think he and some of the Kentucky four had a a mini reunion out in California this past week, so he was out of state.

But we'll give him a little, razz him a little bit on Thursday. They got a, like I said, a six-game winning streak here. They've had multiple five-game winning streaks. They've cheated the Reaper of late. A lot. Yeah. They've cheated the Reaper of late, and that's something we should highlight. Let's look at the Six-game winning.

streak, 100 to 97 victory against Notre Dame and South Bend. Was that double overtime? Double overtime. Boston College, it wasn't until late in the second half that they pulled away. They ended up winning by 13. Looks good on paper. But that was a dogfight in Chestnut Hill. Yep.

Pitt, Panthers, they beat the brakes off of Pitt. Yeah. Pit's not very good. Pitt's not very good. Syracuse, I'll say it was clear separation against the orange. Florida State, a three-point victory in Tallahassee. That game should have been Florida State's win. Yeah.

Florida State's better than a record. 100%. Florida State, we knew going into that matchup, it was a potential, you know, road mine, if you may, landmine, if you mind. I wouldn't want to play them again. 100%. 100%. That Florida State point card is a beast.

Ohio State's point card combo guard was a beast. Four-point win in Nashville neutral site. I'm going to ask this question. guard play, especially guards that can attack off the dribble and get to the rim. It seems there's some tape or some footage out there that if you've got a strong guard that can handle and can get to the rim, that's a weak part of this defense. They could very well be, and they're having to make adjustments at halftime and during games to try to shut some of these guys down like the other night. against Bruce Thornton, he was on fire. What, he scored 18 points in the second half.

A lot of them were almost consecutive, and they finally just had to start double teaming him, which I don't think Virginia does that very much, but when they have to, they have to. And that one adjustment changed the game big time, because at that point, with just a tad over 10 minutes left, Ohio State had the lead. And from that point on, once they made that adjustment, the Buckeyes only scored seven points the final 10 minutes, and five of those were in the last minute.

And Thornton only scored one more time. So that shows you how the defense answered the call there. And meanwhile, Virginia's guards started attacking big time because most of the Virginia's points, the final 10 minutes of the game, especially during a 13-2 run that locked it up, or pretty much locked it up, most of those points were by Malik and Chance Mallory

and Devin Hall got in there. during that run and Lewis finished it off at the free-thool-line, but it can work both ways, I guess. The two things have stood out to me of late. First, I threw to you here. It seems like the combo guards that can score on, you know, different levels are having their way with Virginia's backcourt. I'm going to ask you the question, who is the defensive stopper? on the perimeter for Virginia. Is it hall?

It looks like it's haul. I think Chance Mallory at this time, at this point of his career, is overpowered by stronger guards. I think, you know, Malik Thomas seems like he has every single intangible possible on paper, but it does not seem yet

that Malig Thomas has put it all together for an entire contest. Sam Lewis has the length and the physicality. I'm not sure he has the lateral quickness. to keep up with, you know, combo guards off the bounce. We've seen derriter at times. Yeah.

Defending on, you know, the perimeter. That concerns me because he's the team's go-to-scorer, and the last thing you want is him picking up a cheap foul 25 feet. Which he does. Which he does. From the rim. Yeah. Like, who's the defensive stopper here?

I think it's probably Hall. He's got so much experience and a cool head. and he's a pretty good defensive player, and he's shut down some guys. Sometimes he needs a little help, but that's not overly unusual either. But I think he's probably, if you wanted to place the stopper name on anybody in particular,

I think it would be him. I think the rest of your analysis will spot on there. And I think chance, will eventually become that guy. And sometimes he is, and he just harasses people to death. But I think Hall is the one guy, if somebody's hot, they've got to sick him on them and try to shut him down. We're talking guard play here.

How about Jakari White and the flashes he showed against Florida State look like the Jacari White of old. It's clear that Jacari White's importance with this team is quite significant. He's probably the best what we call it pure shooter.

Yeah. The best shooter on the team? Pure shooter. Pure shooter. There's guys on this team that can be streaker shooters that can go on a nice little run chance. Malik can do that. Sam Lewis. Sam Lewis can do that. We saw that. Sam Lewis in that overtime. It gets in order

name, but pure shooter, it's probably Jakari White. How would you, two-part question, how would you characterize Jacari White's play of late, and how close is Jacari White to being the 100% version of himself? I think he's close. I think each game he gets

just, or each week, he gets a little bit better. I think they said a week ago, that might be a week and a half to two weeks before he gets that protective gear off his left end. So that's getting close to that deadline.

But I think he's going to be one of the keys from here on out as to whether he can regain his form. And he did look very comfortable the other night. He looked like you said, like his old self. He looked bouncy. He looked bouncy, confident. Yeah. And that's part of it.

100%. Like the Florida State coach said, Luke Lox said that once a shooter like Jakari sees that first couple go in, it seems like the rim gets bigger for him. And I think he's definitely one of those guys. And I think they're going to really need him going down the stretch against some of the better teams. because if he can hit some of those shots,

it just opens up so much for the rest of the team, particularly inside it. And it'll take a little pressure off of Derritter, I think. 100%. And Derritter's got double teams heading his way. Derritter's statistical production over the last handful of games has been in the single-digit capacity.

We're going to get to Derritter here in a matter of moments. You've also seen somewhat of a minutes adjustment, I think, with Grunlow and Yugo. Ugo closing games out. Odom choosing to go with Ugo's physicality over Grunlo, who is not the physical, the muscle, the bruising presence of a Ugo. Ugo, perhaps slightly a better shot blocker than Grunlow. Hugo, if he's just asked to be a leaper and a dunker and a finisher around the rim,

could do that as well as anyone on this team. Oh, absolutely. You go shooting three point shots, scares, terrifies the bejebus out of me. I mean, before we get to the minutes change, how about Malik Thomas? I touched on Malik Thomas. This guy seems like he's got all the makings of being a fantastic two guard. Have we seen a fully finished Malik Thomas product yet? I'm not sure that we have.

There's been games particularly early on when he looked like he was the same. guy that we read about before he got here when he was at San Francisco and scoring 20 points a game and was in contention probably should have been his conference player the year last year but I think I think he had to make an adjustment when he got here and it took longer than most people anticipated because the level of competition was just a little bit better all around, then I think what he was accustomed to playing in the, what is that, the big west or I don't know, the mountain west or, I don't even know what conference that is. I'd have to look, but there's so many conferences out in the west now.

But I don't think we've seen the completeness of him at this point. And maybe this is all we're going to. maybe he's at the level that he's going to stay. I don't know that we're going to see a magical turnaround this late in the season, but if he can stay consistent and help out, it's going to give the team some of the support they need. This Virginia basketball team has got a lot of upside, six games left in the regular season. We'll get to some comments coming in right now.

Jeremy Wilson is a fan of the program. He watches in Eastern Tennessee. He says, still no respect from the national media for Virginia basketball in the polls. 14 and both, they should be ranked higher. You buy that, you sell that, hoody. I think 14's about right. They would have been ranked higher had they not have blown that North Carolina game. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. But I think 14's right on point, too. And they probably needed to lose a game like that to help them. Not rest on their laurels. Exactly. And I think they learned some things in that loss, which will probably help them in the long run. But no, I think 14 is about right. I don't know that they need to be much higher than that.

And it really doesn't matter because the net rankings are the only things that really matters. and they're not even that high in the net rankings. In fact, after they beat Ohio State, they dropped from 18th to 19th. I didn't check this morning to see if they've moved up any. But that was kind of hard to explain because Ohio State actually improved in the net rankings after losing to Virginia. And I'll tell you what, Ohio State's a pretty good ball club. They are pretty good. And they were missing a key player.

Yeah, they were missing. their second leading score. Right. And it wouldn't have been embarrassing to lose that game, but they, you know, in typical Virginia fashion of late, they found a way to win. And that's what good teams do. We talked about that in football.

Good teams find ways to win when they shouldn't. And there's a couple of games there that they could have easily dropped probably three. Notre Dame, Florida State and the Ohio State game. So just win those three games, a lot of teams would have fallen under those circumstances. 100%.

Virginia is 19 in the net rankings right now. Yeah. And they were 18 last week before the game. Yep, yeah. Virginia has got, you know, quad one wins, five and two in quad one. Quad two, seven and one. quad three, four, and oh.

Pretty impressive resume so far with six games left and still a matchup with Duke on the docket. We'll get to that Duke contest in a matter of moments. Curious about DeRitter here. What do you see? I think this Miami game is pretty big this week too. I think that one's a big one as well. We'll highlight that.

What do you see in with DeRitter? Single digit performance of late. Yeah, I think, and we've heard coaches say it. I know go back again to the Florida State game, Luke Locke said that they designed their game plan to shut down DeRitter as much as they possibly could. And I think that's what teams are doing now

is they know that if they don't limit him, he can put up some big numbers and be a problem because he can control the middle of the, the lower block. And, you know, people are trying to, if you'll pay close attention, people are trying to deny him going to his right, which is his favorite move.

And sometimes he'll go to his right and then reverse it to the left and then come back to the right. So people are trying to take that away. They're trying to take his strengths away and make him really earn anything he gets. and I think his three-point shooting has fallen off a little bit as a result of that. Maybe he feels a little pressure to score from there, but since he's getting cut off, some of his driving lanes are getting cut off.

But he's got a nice little mid-range shot too, but he doesn't use very often. But I think that's something he's going to have to get used to as people are going to, game plan around taking away his offense. And the one thing that can open that up is if Jakari and some of the other three-point shooters heat up and make people pull them out of the lane and give him a little more working space. How about this question for you? This is an open-ended one. What concerns you about this team? Well, not a lot, but

I think it's going to boil down to three-point shooting, honestly. When they're on and making 10, 11, 12, 13-3s, there's not many people that can have stayed with them. And when they're off from the three-point line, because they take so many three-point shots, when they're off and not hitting, I think it limits what they're able to do because, again, people can focus on shutting down

Derritter and there's, you know, Virginia's guards are getting better, I think, at straight line drives and chance can create. Malik can a little bit, but I think it's going to come down to, in the end, is their ability to hit a high percentage of three-point shots? When they're on, they're almost unbeatable. Absolutely.

Comments continue to come in here. Half a dozen comments on what's going on with Hugo and Grunlow. Start open-ed in with that, then I'll have some follow-up. Folks want to know why Hugo's getting Grunlow's minutes. I think it's because he's just, a better overall all-around player. 100% agree with that statement. I thought Hugo, 100% agree.

I said from the beginning, I thought Hugo was the best pro prospect on this team. Yeah. From top to bottom, his upside. Yeah. And he's the, if you played close attention throughout the season, he's the only guy that Ryan Odom has mentioned the word NBA.

100%. It's so obvious. Yeah. Because of the, the size, the length, the explosiveness, the strength, the leaping ability. He's so athletic. The hands, the fact that he hasn't played much basketball. Now, he is not, he is so far from refined and so close, so far from being a finished product.

But if this guy gets one or two post moves, like, can you imagine you go with like a eight-foot hook shot? Oh. Who could defend that? Nobody. Right. Yeah. And, I mean, you just said it all. I mean, he's great on the alley-oops when they're coordinated.

There's been some bad passes to him that he couldn't do anything about. But he has really perfected not just blocking shots, but blocking and then controlling the shot and getting that ball. And so it doesn't get swatted up into the ninth row in the arena. but he had some great shot-blocking numbers and even some really good rebounding numbers when he was at Kentucky. And I don't know what happened at Kansas State,

but they really blew it with them because they just wanted him. Well, maybe that's why. That guy is such a weapon. Like you said, he's physical. He moved. moves so well. So well. For a guy that big.

It's really agile. It's a good rebounder. And, you know, some of it is, he doesn't always have to block a shot. He can just intimidate a guard from even taking the shot. And that's almost like a turnover if you stop and think about it. He alters more shots. then he blocks and the altered shot does not register in the box score.

And some shots aren't even taken. 100%. Not even taken. And there's fear when this guy's on the floor. And there's fear with Grunlow. Grunlow's a good shot blocker. Grunlow, what Grunlow does well with shot blocking is nuance and timing. What Yugo does with shop blocking is just God-giving ability and explosiveness and athleticism.

if you go got grunlos and derritters nuance and timing and IQ the sky is the limit for this guy yeah that'll eventually come with playing experience because he's a smart guy it's obviously he's a smart guy oh he's no question he's a smart guy he's a good kid too he's he's uh the times we've been around him in post games and stuff he's he's been really fun you know you know what intrigues me and it's we talk about this on the Jerry and Jerry show all the time. It's not how you start, it's how you finish. That's how the trust the coach really has is the guys who's finishing the games. And finishing the games, we're seeing chance on the floor.

We're seeing you go on the floor now. We're seeing Derritter. We're seeing Sam Lewis. And we're seeing Hall. It appears to me that Coach Odom, his most trusted, lineup is Chance, Hall, Sam Lewis, Hugo, and Derritter. I think you're right. And that's a pretty phenomenal lineup.

It is. It's hard to beat. Hard to beat that lineup. I mean, you, that lineup is four professional basketball players, not NBA players, but four guys that will play pro basketball and Hall, who's going to be a college basketball head coach one day. I wouldn't be surprised. Yeah.

With his acumen, his leadership, his experience, his savvy. I mean, Hall is a more talented version of Ryan Odom from a college standpoint, basketball playing standpoint. But there's so much similarities there. Yeah. He's a really smart kid and has great basketball IQ. He, we talk about glue guys a lot. He's got one sitting right over here. Chew to Wickhauer. He's definitely a glue guy. I mean, he keeps that team together. He's part of that.

You know, I wrote something about this the other day. It's one of the reasons they've been able to pull out some of these close games. The Reaper cheaters, we were talking about, is because he keeps that team from panicking. You can always see. He's always at the free throw line before. they go up to the free throws and he'll get the team together and he'll talk to him and he's a calming presence. Do you think he's the alpha dog?

Yeah. I think he's the alpha dog. Yeah, he is. He is. I mean, they call him Captain America for a reason. They also call him Unk. He's one of the older guys on the team. He is one of the older guys.

And there are some older guys on this team. 100%. And that's another reason I think that they don't lose. control is they've they've been through so much and seen so much experience so much that they've been there before they know that there's no reason to give up that they can find a way to win that's that's that's incredibly valuable particularly in the postseason you got what malik thomas at 24 years old you got derritter at 23 years old let's see what dayland hall he just had a birthday i think um malik thomas his birthday was

february 4th yeah did reader did ridder have a birthday the ritter had a birthday as well a week or two ago so did dailan hall he is uh 23 so got a 23 year old point guard 24 year old two guard 23 year old power forward let's see what sam lewis is um lewis louis uva age Sam Lewis is 21. You got elder statesman. Chikari White's been around the block. I mean, really, they go nine deep. The only one that lacks playing experience is Chance Mallor.

Chance Mallor is the first year, right? Because you got Hugo, who's been around the block. He's got one year. This is last year of eligibility. I think Grunlow is only 19. Grunlow, you're right. Grunlow's 19. But he played pro basketball. True. But to your point, you're right. Grunlow's 19. So Chance, really.

This comments come in. This is coming in from the Triangle at North Carolina. Diehard UBA fan. Love the show, guys. Can you guys talk about what Virginia needs to do to open up DeRitter again to bring back his shooting confidence? Because it seems like he's hesitant to shoot from the perimeter, which he wasn't at the beginning of the year. Yeah, I think, again, I think he, it's probably in his head a little bit just because he's not being as effective as a scorer as he was. And, you know, there's a lot relying on him. They look to him a lot in clutch situations because he can, I don't think anybody can stop him one-on-one. At least we haven't seen anybody yet who's been able to consider. consistently do that. And so he's used to getting the ball down on the block and bullying his way to the

basket for a layup. And when he can't do that, they take that away. He's probably out there on the perimeter thinking, well, should I take this? You know, it's a confidence thing, I think. And I I think that what's going to open it back up for him is, again, Jakari and Sam and Malik, an even chance to some degree hitting some three-pointers to give him more working space down on the block. And they can't take away both things because if you're going to focus on trying to stop derritoring,

it opens up the three-point shooters, and they're making their shots. and you're giving up three instead of two, you're going to have to start pushing out to the perimeter and making runs at these guys. And if you do that, then you can't double team to Ritter. And if you do, you're leaving somebody else wide open, probably Hugo or somebody who's going to get an easy dunk.

But I think that's what's going to take the pressure off is the three-pointers. I still think the three-pointers. is going to be the key to how far this team goes. I 1,000% agree with you. 1,000% agree with what you just said. What have you been seeing from Chance Mallory of late? Just a dog. That would be my worst nightmare if I was another guard

and I see Chance Mallory coming at me because I know I'm in for a long night. Yeah, yeah. He's going to, he's relentless. He's not going to back off of, anybody. He has no fear. He has incredible confidence, which makes up for his lack of experience. He's just going to get better and better and better. But, you know, it's interesting. And he's played a lot of summer ball and stuff like that. So I guess the game, the amount of games is probably not wearing on him as much as

it might some freshmen but he doesn't seem to be wearing down at all and every loose ball it's a dog fight and if he's near it

it's his you're not going to get that ball away from him it's like trying to get the ball away from Buck Buchanan at the bottom of a football pile you're just not going to get it but that's good reference right there i think i think he's just a really incredible

freshman and just going to get better it's got to be fun watching him grow chance mallory epitomizes the saying it's not the size of the dog of the fight it's the size of the fight in the dog yeah and and to hootie's point he's just got so much fight within him. And that desire to win and be the best and to be competitive has helped him overcome, let's cut to the chase, 5'8, 5'9 frame.

Listed at 5'10. It's not 5'10. But he is overcome so much. Chance Mallory, Renee Petterford's watching the program. She says his nickname is Prince. Yeah, he's the Prince of Charlottesville. Prince of Charlottesville. His teammates nicknamed him that.

I don't know if that's the fresh prince. or just the prints. I think both. I think both, my friend. She also says, does Houdi know anything about who will be at Saturday's court tribute for Tony Bennett?

I think most of his former players who are not involved in basketball will be there. I know Joe Harris is going to be there. I talked to him last week. I don't have a list, but I would imagine just about everybody that played for Tony

during his 15 years here, we'll be back except for guys like Jay Huff and some of those guys who are actually playing somewhere or some of the guys who are coaching elsewhere unless they don't have games for whatever reason. So I would expect a pretty full list of people back we're going to I think

I think we're lining up having Anthony Gill on our Hootie and JJ show Thursday to talk about Tony's career and he's a

he's a very astute and philosophical man Anthony Gill yeah I really appreciate his perspective with a great sense of humor 100% that guy's a smart guy

yeah so yeah I think Renee I think you'll see just about everybody back. Derek Jones watching the program. Love the emails we get from you, Derek Jones. We appreciate you.

Love your support of the show. Derek Jones. He's a big Virginia fan. He says, I absolutely love this show. He says, I think this team has the makeup to have a deep postseason run. Their depth is a big factor. And we have a great coaching staff. This team has a no-lose kind of psyche from Derek Jones.

There's certainly Derek Jones extremely resilient. And again, I want to highlight. a second time the enjoyment I get with the emails that you send. Sounds like you get some emails from Derek Jones as well. I do, yeah, I have been for a long time. Yeah, I certainly appreciate them. Yes. The Miami matchup.

Miami, as you highlight in the beginning of the show, is no cupcake. Miami is 20 and 5 overall. They're fighting for that double buy. That's right. 20 and 5 overall and 9 and 3 in conference play, performing well under Coach Lucas, the former Duke assistant who's in his first year in Coral Gables in South Florida. Yes, they have Georgia Tech on the docket tomorrow.

This is a pretty bad Georgia Tech team. Damon Stonemeyer still the head coach? He is. He's a good guy. Great guy. He just doesn't have the resources. The NIL budget. Yeah.

He's just underserved and underresourced and hotline. It's been hard for Tech to win ever since Bobby Cremond's hung it up. 100%. 100%. Miami on their other hand is pretty talented. Yeah. I'm not real familiar

with their personnel. I haven't seen them play that much this year on TV or anything, but they're obviously pretty darn good. We'll look more into them as the week goes on.

Georgia Tech's what, 2 and 11, I think? Yep. They're struggling. So Virginia just got to go in there and not let their guard down and get in and out of the hotlanda without any damage and focus on Saturday because that game Saturday is going to be pretty big.

Miami's, if they could find a way to upset Virginia, that would be a big feather in their cap and probably help them be in good shape for that double-by. Miami's got four double-digit scores. I'm looking at the stats now. I agree with Hootie. I have not seen a lot of Miami on television. Malik Renaud is their top performer at 20 points of contest, six boards a game, two dimes, one pick pocket, a block.

He stuffs the stat sheet across the board, hitting at 37% from Bonifier and 57% from the field. But four double-digit scores, the team plays one, two, three, three, four, five, six, seven, eight guys, at least 17 minutes or more, and two other guys, 10, nine minutes or more. So this is a very deep team. And like Hootie said, Miami's going to come out gutting for Virginia, because not only the double by, this is the type of feather in the cap for the NCAA tournament and for seating purposes with just a handful of games remaining in the regular season. Yeah, we're getting down to the nitty-gritty.

Most teams have six games left, and they're going to try to be jockeying for the top four teams, obviously you don't have to play until the weekend, pretty much, in Charlotte. So that's going to be a big deal. and they're in a in a tooth in a battle with NC State for that fourth spot for sure and then I guess North Carolina is probably on their heels too but no pun intended but that's a precious spot that number four spot so you don't have to play until the quarter finals Renee says this make sure you share this with Hootie that

Ryan Odom mentioned that he and his players and staff will be on the court with Tony Bennett on Saturday to pay homage. Renee Pettiford would know. She's on the ACC conference call. We respect that significantly Renee Pettiford. She says Miami is beat UNC and NC State, and she watched the Miami versus NC State game last Saturday. So she's doing her homework. She knows her hoops. She knows her hoops.

Bobby Kohler, who's a diehard UBA fan, says, he thinks 14 in both polls is about right. I agree. And he said, I saw something where Alabama is on the fourth line over UVA, and that makes them laugh out loud. Yeah, they're ranked 25th in the country. I don't understand why they would be that high. I think the Virginia basketball has an opportunity,

if it continues to do things the right way, could earn a three-seat in the NCAA tournament. It's conceivable. It's conceivable. Right now, I believe the Bracketologists have them as a four seed. Yeah, I've seen four and five. Yeah, so you potentially could get a three seed. What's the gap with Virginia and Duke, do you think?

Duke is one of the best teams in the nation. Depending on where you're shopping, Duke is somewhere between, what, three and five in the national polls. How big is the gap between UVA and Duke, Cudy? there's definitely a gap there and I think the difference in this game could be where it's played I think on a neutral court it would be a much more

50-50 kind of game as opposed to being in Cameron none of these guys have ever been to Cameron before they don't know what it's like and it can be a hellhole for a team coming in there for first time and not knowing what to expect if you get off to a bad start because it can magnify. And that's where guys like Dallon Hall are valuable in keeping the team composed if things get off to a rocky start and Ryan Odom to keep his team calm.

but I think there's a I think there's a gap there I think Duke will probably be favored by four and a half points something like that in Cameron and but they can be beat there's no question we've seen that

the key is staying with them avoiding big runs and giving yourself a chance down the last five or six minutes of the game to pull off the upset. Comments continue to come in here on the

Jerry and Jerry show. One of our headlines is Ryan Odom is on the short list for National Coach of the Year and the Frontrunner for ACC Coach of the Year. Folks are asking if you feel confident about that statement. Yeah, I mean, I would think it would be

between him and Lucas right now for ACC coach of the year nationally I haven't kept up with who's doing a great job with teams that

maybe weren't expected to do so much one of the guys that was kind of a candidate here and was kept kind of quiet but the guy at Iowa State is doing a brilliant job

and I thought he would have been a great choice to come to Virginia if they couldn't get Odom. He's six in both polls, 22 and 3 overall, the Iowa State men's basketball team, great program, great coaching staff. Yeah, great fan base. Great fan base. For basketball, for sure. I've been there.

It's a tough place to win. It's a rowdy bunch. But I think Ryan is in, if things continue on schedule, I think Ryan should be the ACC coach of the year, just because of the incredible job he's done, and we've talked about it adenosium, in building a roster from scratch.

Where does this stack up? We're, what, let's see, August, September, October, November, December, January, half of February. We're six and a half months into the 2025-2020-six season. And where's the first half of the year stack up in greatest in Virginia athletics history? You mean in just basketball? Sports across the board. All sports across the board. Most wins in Virginia football history.

Yeah. It's right up there. I mean, I think I saw something the other day that if the basketball team continues on like this, It'll be the first time since 95 that Virginia finished in the top 25 in football and basketball. I'm not sure if that number is correct or not. I'd have to think back and look back. But, you know, it's incredibly rare for Virginia to be ranked in the top 25

in the two major sports at the same time. And it hasn't happened a lot during my time here. So, you know, I would have to go and look back in the books because there's too many years rolling around in my brain. But that sounds about right, 95, that they actually finished in the top 25 in both football and basketball. comments continue to come in here this one with the Tony Bennett court honoring what are you going to be following Jerry Rackcliffe and the significance of what's happening on Saturday well you know we don't know exactly what the itinerary will be over there because you know Tony's such a modest guy I don't know if he'll talk to the media before the game or halftime or after the game or at all,

we may not get any exposure to him. It would be nice to be able to, if nothing else at halftime, just to be able to sit down with him for five minutes just to, but I don't know if that opportunity will be there or not. It probably depends on whether he wants to do that or not. So we may have to just get our quotes like everybody else from what he says on the PA system when they honor him out on the court. Have you seen him around the program much? I think he shows up from time to time, but he's the kind of guy that doesn't want to be appearing to looking over the shoulder kind of guy.

Like DeGer Phelps used to do at Notre Dame, whoever the coach was. after him and would show up the practices and unannounced and stuff like that. Most coaches don't want to do that. And so I don't, I think he'll, he's around every now and then, but he certainly doesn't, I don't think, want to be a strong presence over there. What strikes you from the Atlantic Coast Conference at this point of the season? I'm surprised that Miami is as good as they are. Although Laranega had built a strong program,

you weren't sure exactly what was going to happen, but the way the NIL is now, anything can happen in a short period of time. It just depends on how good your scouting is and how much money you've got to spend. I think Clemson is a team, that can play defense well against just about anybody, but I think if they get into a game where it's a greyhound pace and they have to put up a lot of points, I don't think they

have the firepower to stay in a close game with a team who can produce a lot of points. So I think that might be their downfall. NC State is about what we thought they would be. It's going to be interesting to see what Louisville does now that they have a brownback. Carolina is pretty much what we thought they would be. I thought Virginia Tech would be a little bit better, and they would be, except they've lost at least three games almost at the buzzer. So that would make a huge difference in their season.

But not a lot of surprises, really. I don't think. How about you? I mean, I think the surprise to me is how quickly Odom has gotten this Virginia basketball team clicking on this type of cylinders. I never anticipated that. Yeah. I thought Virginia would be good, but I didn't know they would be this good.

I didn't think they would be this good at all. Yeah. I don't think any of the fans knew how good the foreign talent was. I didn't anticipate Chance Mallory performing at this clip. I didn't anticipate some of the guys that transitioned from mid-majors performing at this clip. Most significantly, I never anticipated that Ryan Odom was going to get the team to gel this quickly. I'm struck by the NBA talent in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Caleb Wilson and the Boozer kid at Duke are two guys that are going to go on the top five pick in the NBA.

Wilson and Boozer are not just NBA talents, but they look like they're going to be stars. Also seems to me that the Atlantic Coast Conference has returned to prominence. Duke and UVA and North Carolina and Louisville don't discount the Cardinals. Louisville has got so much talent. are literally four of the top 20 teams in the country. Yeah, Brown could be a lottery pick. 100%. The point card for Louisville is, and guys, Virginia,

the stars are alluding for Virginia this season in so many ways that Louisville matchup, Louisville on their home court didn't have their best player. And when this kid is playing basketball, he's proven he can score 40 plus points a game. So Virginia kind of dodged a bullet there. I'm also surprised with, say, a Virginia Tech team who's got a kid that's an NBA talent, this Greek young man. Seven footer. Yeah.

Looks like a junior version of Luke Adonich on that team. I'm surprised Virginia Tech's not performing better. But I look at the Atlantic Coast Conference and I see one, two, three, four, five, six, seven teams with a 500 or better record. seven teams that are over 500, including Louisville, that's 8 and 4, and North Carolina, that's 8 and 4. And then you've got SMU and Virginia Tech and the Cowl and

Bears that are at 500 or flirting with 500. This team easily could have 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, this team easily could have 7 teams in the Big Dance. This is the ACC or more. I think even more, yeah. Yeah, this is the ACC of yesteryear. Yeah, yeah.

And I think this is what they envisioned originally. But, and then I think the biggest thing they've done to help themselves was to get away from that, what I thought was a really dumb decision to play a 20-game conference schedule. And it took away. They were beating each other up. Yeah, and it took away opportunities to build your RPI or net or whatever you want to use as a measuring stick against the rest of the country. and we've seen the ACC teams take advantage of that,

and it's showing in the standings, obviously. Viewers and listeners, this show airs wherever you get your podcasting content, and it features Jerry Rackcliffe. What do you have in the hopper at Jerry Rackcliffe.com? Well, we're definitely going to be all over the basketball team until it's all over whenever that might be. Hopefully it won't be any time soon. Baseball a little bit.

We wrote a little bit about Gracia the other day before their season opener against Wagner, and then we'll be looking a little bit at some of the other spring sports as we go along. But right now it's basketball, basketball, basketball. I've thoroughly enjoyed the season. Yeah, it's been fun. It's hard to believe that there's only six regular season games left.

This season's gone by faster than most. And maybe it's because it's been more fun. Because it's been more fun. Guys, there's about 45 days left of basketball, college basketball left. And then the spring season, well, spring season is started, but 40, 45 days left. Enjoy it. Tomorrow, Georgia Tech, Saturday, Miami, Tony Bennett, court honoring Saturday, and that matchup against the Duke Blue Devils is right around the corner where the entire world will be watching Ryan Odom and his program as they travel to Durham. His name is Jerry Rackleff. He's the Virginia Sports Hall of Famer.

His website is Jerry Rackliff.com. Judah Woodcarrow is the man behind the camera who is preparing for an interview. with a pretty big individual that's going to be joining us on the I Love Seville Show. Oh, cool. And John McGuire, the Congressman. Thank you for joining us on the Jerry and Jerry show on a fantastic day to be in Charlottesville, just a couple of miles from grounds in the John Paul Jones Arena. So long, everybody. Nice and done, please.

Thank you, sir.