Cavaliers Now

Report: Two More UVA Women's Basketball Guards Enter Transfer Portal

Matt Newton

Virginia Athletics

The list of UVA women's basketball players entering the transfer portal continues to grow. Two more Cavaliers reportedly dipped into the portal, as freshman guard Payton Dunbar and graduate guard Casey Valenti-Paea have entered their names into the transfer portal, as reported by Jacquie Franciulli of Wahoos247 on Tuesday afternoon (March 25). Dunbar and Valenti-Paea join Latasha Lattimore, Edessa Noyan, and Hawa Doumbouya in the group of five Virginia women's basketball players who have entered the portal since the transfer window opened on Monday.

Payton Dunbar, a 5'11" freshman from Narrows, Virginia, is a particularly disappointing departure from the program as a Virginia native who showed flashes of promise in her first year on Grounds, scoring nine points in her debut. Though she played few minutes this season, appearing in 15 games and averaging 8.1 minutes and 1.9 points per game, Dunbar certainly had potential as a deadly perimeter shooter in the future. But now, Dunbar enters the portal after less than a year at UVA and looks for a new home with three years of eligibility remaining.

Meanwhile, Casey Valenti-Paea is on the other end of her collegiate career, entering the transfer portal for the third time. A 5'9" guard from Melbourne, Australia, Valenti-Paea began her career at Buffalo, playing five games in the 2020-2021 season and then suffering a season-ending injury six games into the following season. Valenti-Paea transferred to Long Beach State and redshirted the 2022-2023 season before playing her first full season in 2023-2024, starting 32 of 33 games and averaging 9.4 points, 2.4 assists, 3.8 rebounds, and 2.1 steals per game and shooting 38.6% from beyond the arc. Her next stop took Valenti-Paea to Charlottesville, where she played in 30 of Virginia's 32 games and averaged 2.1 points and 1.5 rebounds in 10.5 minutes per game. Valenti-Paea was not often called upon to be a scorer for the Cavaliers, though she did have a 12-point game in Virginia's win at Pittsburgh, her lone double-digit scoring effort of the season.

Valenti-Paea and Dunbar were the first guards to hit the transfer portal out of the UVA women's basketball program this offseason, but the overall total is now five Cavaliers in the portal. While each situation is different and we can only speculate as to the reasoning that led to Doumbouya, Lattimore, Noyan, Valenti-Paea, and Dunbar choosing to enter the portal, the outcome is that Coach Mox and her staff now have a lot of roster spots to fill, with Lattimore (29 starts) and Noyan (23 starts) being the most significant departures.

Fortunately for the Cavaliers, they enter this offseason with a serious upgrade in resources from which to pull as they chase impact transfers to add to their roster. UVA alum Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit and founder of the venture capital firm Seven Seven Six, made the largest donation in the history of the program and the second-largest gift to women's athletics in UVA school history last December. According to the press release from UVA, the gift will be used to "elevate Virginia Women's Basketball recruiting and retention of championship level talent" and "will allow UVA to be a premier destination for female student-athletes while addressing the financial and competitive demands of this new era of college athletics."

Well, now is the time to put that money to good use.

Stay tuned to Virginia Cavaliers On SI for all the latest updates regarding Virginia's offseason activity in the transfer portal.

More UVA Women's Basketball News & Content

Virginia Women's Basketball: Edessa Noyan Enters Transfer Portal

UVA Women's Basketball: Latasha Lattimore Enters Transfer Portal

Virginia Women’s Hoops at the Crossroads

UVA Women's Basketball: Hawa Doumbouya to Enter Transfer Portal

UVA Women's Basketball's Kymora Johnson Named to All-ACC First Team

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Matt Newton
MATT NEWTON

Matt launched Virginia Cavaliers On SI in August of 2021 and has since served as the site's publisher and managing editor, covering all 23 NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia. He is from Downingtown, Pennsylvania and graduated from UVA in May of 2021.