UVA Basketball Portal Season Takeaways

After five transfer additions this spring, Tony Bennett has a young roster loaded with former prized recruits.  There are questions though about how those pieces will fit together, and what impact they’ll have on 2025 recruiting.  

Most Top 100 Recruits Ever

Virginia’s 2024-25 roster will include eight players who were former Top 100 recruits in the 247Sports composite rankings.  More than any team Tony Bennett has ever had.  Seniors Jalen Warley (43) and Taine Murray (89).  Junior Isaac McKneely (63).  Sophomores Dai Dai Ames (64), Elijah Gertrude (63), TJ Power (20), and Blake Buchanan (76).  Incoming freshman Jacob Cofie (82). 

Six was the previous high under Bennett.  He’s had a remarkably consistent flow of top 100 recruits.  In 10 of the last 11 seasons, UVA’s roster has included either five or six of them.  The lone exception was when he had just three for the 2021-22 season,  the only team during that span to miss the NCAA Tournament. 

While we all understand that high school rankings aren’t always indicative of college success, UVA suddenly has a wealth of players who were once highly sought after recruits.  It gives Bennett more margin for error than he’s had in a while.  

Youth Movement

The depth of talent is strong, but UVA will have a very young roster next season.  In an age in which teams are loading up on experience through the transfer portal, Bennett has taken a different path.  Four of his five transfer additions have multiple years remaining.  With only two seniors and eight underclassmen, UVA will surely have one of the youngest teams in the ACC.  And during this final year of so-called covid seniors, they’ll be without one. 

That mix of talent and youth makes for a hard team to project.  Rising junior Isaac McKneely will be the only player on the roster who has averaged over 8 points in a college season at the high major level.  Yet, there’s obvious potential for several others to make a big leap.  When you have that many young former prized recruits, it’s almost inevitable that some will.  It’s just a question of when and to what extent.  

If enough of those young pieces step up as hoped, Virginia could easily be back in the top tier of the ACC again in 2024-25.  Bennett has clearly built his team with a two or three year window more in mind than the immediate.  I think that will be the bigger story, whether they show glimpses of greatness for the years ahead.  

How the New Pieces Fit

It remains to be seen how well Virginia’s recent transfer additions fit with each other.  That could go a long way in determining how good the Wahoos can be next season.  

Florida State transfer Jalen Warley and Kansas State transfer Dai Dai Ames are both listed as point guards.   With great size at 6’7”, Warley can defend three or four different positions.  However, he was at his best offensively for FSU when he played with the ball in his hands.  That’s also the natural role for Ames.  They’ll certainly share the court together a good bit next season.  UVA needs one or both to become more effective playing off the ball.  

Similarly, Duke transfer TJ Power and San Diego State transfer Elijah Saunders are both power forwards.  Bennett absolutely wants to play those two together.  They’re valuable offensive weapons.  How often that happens will mostly depend on whether they prove capable of defending other positions.  The hope is for Power to slide out and be used at guard occasionally in big lineups, and for Saunders to move down to the center spot in small-ball looks.  

Becoming a more versatile team was a top goal of the coaching staff this spring.  The pieces they added definitely have the potential to help achieve that.  It’s unproven though.  

Recruiting Fallout

We’re near the midpoint in the class of 2025 recruiting cycle.  The recent transfer additions have changed Virginia’s roster dynamics.  That will trickle down into high school recruiting.  The Hoos now only have two scholarships available for 2025 recruits.  And with an already very young team, eight underclassmen, it won’t be as easy to land 2025 recruits as it might have before.  That’s the trade off.  

This isn’t hard to explain.  UVA’s top targets in the 2025 class have been point guards and wing forwards.  Those are the players the staff devoted the most early effort toward.  Then they added transfers at those exact positions, former prized recruits with three years left.  So now, they have two underclassmen point guards (Ames, Bliss) and two underclassmen forwards (Power, Cofie).  The 2025 recruits they’re after have lots of options, and most aren’t nearly as crowded.  

UVA is still squarely in the running for several current 2025 recruits.  Point guards Chance Mallory and Acaden Lewis, forwards London Jemison and Brady Koehler.  Maybe a couple others.  But they’re not in a favorable position for any of them.  Expect the coaching staff to adjust as the summer goes on.  They have a better opportunity for a combo or shooting guard now.  And the right frontcourt player may be more of an upside long term play.  

Well Adjusted

The biggest portal season takeaway for me is that UVA has adjusted well to the current environment.  There’s been a lot of changes to the college basketball landscape over a short period of time.  Every program has been figuring out how to best navigate the portal and NIL.  It’s taken time.  We’ve reached a point where UVA is in a good place with it all. 

I don’t believe NIL was the deciding factor for any transfer recruit UVA was involved with this spring.  And that’s really the goal.  I’m not saying NIL wasn’t important to most of them, undoubtedly it was.  It’s just that UVA wasn’t at a disadvantage.  Wake Forest had a large donor involved in recruiting TJ Power, yet he chose Virginia where he’ll likely earn just as much or more.  Even recruits who went elsewhere like Aidan Mahaney and Malik Mack would have had the opportunity to make roughly the same at UVA.  

That’s largely a credit to the administration, donors, and Cav Futures.  They’ve done great work putting the infrastructure in place while staying within the ever-changing rules/laws.  But the system has evolved too.  Most transfers hire agents now.  That has helped to bring negotiations out of the shadows. Everyone involved has a better understanding of what's allowed.  In the past, UVA wasn’t comfortable when the topic came up in recruiting at all.  Now, it’s just part of the process.  

They’ll need to continue to stay ahead of the NIL curve, as rules and laws change.  And learn as they go.  Same for the portal in general.  But at least for now, UVA seems to be in a really good place where they’re offering highly competitive NIL opportunities while feeling comfortable that they’re going about it in the right way. 

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(Featured Image Credit: Emily Faith Morgan/UVA Athletics)