The Cavaliers are in the top 10 of the Top 25 And 1 after rolling over John Calipari's Razorbacks
Nov 9, 2026 at 10:16 am ET • 2 min read
Virginia returned four of the top six scorers from last season's team that won 30 games, including its best player, Thijs De Ridder. If you forgot that, you were likely reminded of it Sunday, when the Cavaliers trotted out a starting lineup featuring those four players and then used them to embarrass Arkansas at Capital One Arena in Washington.
Final score: Virginia 91, Arkansas 72.
The Cavaliers made 12 3-pointers, shot 46% from the field, led by as many as 27 points and cruised to an easy victory over an Arkansas team picked to finish third in what rates as the sport's best conference (SEC). De Ridder finished with 16 points and 10 rebounds. If somebody at Duke doesn't win ACC Player of the Year, he likely will.
As Matt Norlander and I discussed on Sunday's episode of the Eye On College Basketball Podcast, among the interesting things about Virginia is how second-year coach Ryan Odom has built a top-10 team even though the price-tag connected to his roster doesn't even rank in the top 30 nationally, according to a recent study Norlander conducted alongside Isaac Trotter.
How did UVA do it?
The answer is in the first sentence of this post. Virginia returned four of its top six scorers, which is notable because what we've learned in this new era of legalized pay-for-play is that it's usually much less expensive to bring back a star than it is to purchase a new star from another school out of the transfer portal. So, by having returning stars instead of incoming stars, Virginia got a pretty good bang for its buck while building this team, and that's why it's reasonable to think the Cavaliers can compete with Duke and Louisville at the top of the ACC even though both of those schools out-spent Virginia roster-building this season by more than $5 million.
Rare opening-week title game rematch doubles as a familiar warning: UConn is yet again a national title threat
Matt Norlander
UVA is No. 9 in Monday morning's updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings, where Florida remains No. 1 and Duke remains No. 2 with interesting tests on tap for both. Florida will play at Florida State on Tuesday in a game scheduled to tip at 6 pm ET. An hour later, the Champions Classic will get underway with Duke vs. Michigan State.
And that's not the only good stuff coming Tuesday.
Illinois at Texas Tech is a matchup of the teams ranked No. 3 and No. 16 in the Top 25 And 1. Kansas-Kentucky, in the second game of the Champions Classic, is a matchup of the teams ranked No. 5 and No. 19 in the Top 25 And 1. And Memphis at Vanderbilt is a matchup of the teams ranked 26th and 24th, respectively, in the Top 25 And 1.
What an awesome night of hoops that's going to be, one that guarantees the Top 25 And 1 won't look the same Wednesday morning as it will Tuesday morning. Can't wait to see how everything unfolds. Enjoy it -- and then join Norlander and I early Wednesday when we recap everything on the Eye On College Basketball Podcast.
