Five Things to Watch in the Virginia Basketball Blue-White Scrimmage

Matt Newton | Oct 4, 2024

Virginia Athletics

We will get our first look at the 2024-2025 Virginia men's basketball team on Saturday at the annual Blue-White Scrimmage. The gates at John Paul Jones Arena will open at 5pm (free admission), the UVA women's basketball team will scrimmage at 6pm, then there will be a three-point shooting contest at 6:45pm, and then the UVA men's basketball team will have its intrasquad scrimmage at around 7pm.

While it's never a good idea to draw too many major conclusions from a preseason scrimmage played more than a month before the season starts, that doesn't mean we can't get excited about seeing the Hoos take the court and put this drastically new-look roster on display for the first time.

Here are five things we're looking forward to seeing in Saturday's Virginia men's basketball Blue-White Scrimmage:

First Look at the Transfers

As always, the most exciting thing about the annual Blue-White Scrimmage is that it's the first opportunity for us to see the newcomers in a Virginia uniform, and in particular the transfers, of which there are five. For Duke transfer and former five-star recruit TJ Power, is his three-point jumper as good as everyone says and how does he look on the defensive end? Does Power share the court at all with fellow power forward and San Diego State transfer Elijah Saunders? Aztec fans thought Saunders was poised for a breakout year before he entered the portal, so could that projection come to fruition and see the Cavaliers as the primary beneficiary? Will Saunders be able to stretch the floor and how does he complement UVA's other front court pieces on the defensive end?

After three years of playing against him at Florida State, how does Jalen Warley fit in at Virginia? His versatility as an athletic 6'7" guard will be extremely valuable on defense, but how much of a playmaking role will he fill for the Cavaliers on the other end of the floor?

Dai Dai Ames finished his freshman season at Kansas State strong, starting the last 13 games and scoring in double figures in three of the last five. Can he keep that momentum going as he comes to Virginia to fill the void left when Elijah Gertrude suffered his unfortunate non-basketball injury?

Finally, the hometown kid Carter Lang. He's technically a walk-on, but the 6'9", 238-pound center is no normal walk-on, having played in 24 games and made seven starts as a true freshmn at Vanderbilt last season. Does Lang see the floor at Virginia? How does he figure into UVA's crowded, but unproven front court?

These questions won't be answered on Saturday, but the scrimmage will give us some interesting data points to consider in the last month before the season begins.

Immediate Impacts from the Freshmen?

Virginia has two true freshmen on the roster in Jacob Cofie and Ishan Sharma. Last year, Blake Buchanan played a huge role for Virginia as a first year, while Elijah Gertrude was in and out of the lineup and never got consistent opportunities despite showing flashes. Will either Cofie or Sharma make a strong first impression in the scrimmage?

It might be more difficult for Cofie to carve out a role given the bodies Virginia now has in its front court with Buchanan, Power, Saunders, Lang, and Anthony Robinson, but Sharma is a big guard (6'5") and can apparently shoot the cover off the ball. That's value Tony Bennett might not be able to ignore. If we are to believe the rumors coming out of practice, there is some serious momentum for Ishan Sharma earning considerable playing opportunities in his first year at Virginia.

Look for the Canadian sharpshooter Sharma to let it fly during the scrimmage and keep an eye on how Cofie handles the physical play with the other bigs in the paint.

How Do the Redshirt Freshmen Look?

Christian Bliss and Anthony Robinson redshirted their first seasons at Virginia, a practice that UVA probably uses more than any other program in college basketball. Now, the question is what kind of redshirt development arc will they follow? The legendary redshirts at Virginia have names like De'Andre Hunter and Jay Huff, while some took a little longer to develop (Francisco Caffaro, Kadin Shedrick) and others never quite panned out (Leon Bond III, Francesco Badocchi). What does the future hold for Bliss and Robinson?

For Bliss, losing a big chunk of his redshirt year due to a lower body injury was far from ideal, but there could be an opportunity for playing time due to the minutes that just came available at point guard with Reece Beekman's departure. Virginia has a few options at point guard - Dai Dai Ames, Jalen Warley, and Andrew Rohde have each handled those ballhandling duties at times in the past - but nothing is set in stone. Depending on how reliable his three-point shot is, Bliss might have the highest potential as a pure point guard on the roster and Bennett could set himself up well for the next few seasons by giving Bliss a lot of playing time this year.

Robinson, meanwhile, has put on some serious muscle, as is always the hope when a first year big spends a redshirt season with Mike Curtis. He now stands at 6'10", 250 pounds according to the official roster. Blake Buchanan is expected to be UVA's starting center, but it'd be good to see Robinson pushing him for minutes and it'll be very interesting to see them go head-to-head in the paint during the scrimmage on Saturday.

Three-Point Shooting

Every team in college basketball could use more shooting. And while the 2023-2024 Cavaliers weren't terrible in that regard (35.8% for the season, sixth in the ACC), it wasn't nearly consistent enough to avoid those killer droughts that doomed them in their many lopsided defeats. In trying to project how Virginia will shoot the three this season, there is one absolute known commodity in Isaac McKneely, who led the ACC and was top five in the country in three-point shooting at 44.5%. We're also pretty sure about TJ Power, who didn't shoot it that well in a very small sample size last year at Duke, but who should be a deadly three-point shooter with more attempts. We're very interested to see what UVA's offensive spacing could look like with both Power and McKneely on the floor. Don't sleep on Taine Murray either, as the senior guard shot 45% from three on significantly fewer attempts than McKneely. Could he give the Hoos another reliable shooter at higher volume?

Perhaps more importantly, though, there is a group of players on the roster who have shot 32% or better at various times in their careers. If they can either replicate that number or even marginally improve, that could be massive. Andrew Rohde and Jalen Warley did not shoot the three well last season, but were decent shooters earlier in their careers. Dai Dai Ames and Elijah Saunders both shot 32% last season. There's also the question of how much Christian Bliss or Ishan Sharma can contribute from beyond the arc in their first seasons playing college basketball.

It's not a stretch to imagine Virginia being a better than decent three-point shooting team this season if just a couple of these guys can knock down open threes along with the production UVA is expecting to get from McKneely and Power.

How does this impact the scrimmage? Well, we're going to observe how these players shoot in the scrimmage, but we're also fascinated to see who will participate in the three-point shooting contest that is going to be held before the men's scrimmage begins and what the outcome of that contest is.

Injury Updates

We already know that Virginia will be without Elijah Gertrude for the season, as the sophomore guard suffered a knee injury as the result of a scooter accident last spring. What we don't know, however, is the current status of the various players who have been spotted wearing casts, boots, or crutches in the background of videos posted to the official UVA men's basketball social media accounts in the last six weeks. We're still a full month away from the beginning of the season, but Saturday's scrimmage will tell us at least a little bit about who's available right now and if there are any concerning injuries lingering on the roster.

Virginia Cavaliers On SI will be on the scene at JPJ for the scrimmages on Saturday evening and we'll have stats, analysis, takeaways, and video highlights of both scrimmages posted to the site on Sunday.

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