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UVA Basketball Recruiting Target Cam Ward Sets Decision Date

Matt Newton

2025 consensus four-star forward Cam Ward on his official visit to the Virginia men's basketball program.
2025 consensus four-star forward Cam Ward on his official visit to the Virginia men's basketball program. / Cam Ward/IG
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One of the top remaining targets on the board in the recruiting class of 2025 for Virginia will announce his college decision soon. Four-star forward Cam Ward, who recently cut his list of schools to UVA, Kansas State, Michigan State, and Maryland, will announce his commitment decision on Tuesday, October 22nd at 6pm, as reported by Adam Finkelstein of 247Sports.

In announcing his top four, Ward eliminated a long list of major conference suitors, including Texas, Tennessee, Syracuse, Marquette, Florida State, Notre Dame, Mississippi State, Arkansas, Georgetown, Providence, Villanova, West Virginia, Iowa, Providence, Georgia Tech and others. Ward has taken official visits to each of his finalist schools, including a trip to Virginia in early September.

A 6'7" small forward out of Washington D.C., Ward is rated a four-star prospect by each of the major recruiting services and is also a consensus top 100 recruit, coming in at No. 53 in the most recent ESPN Top 100 for the class of 2025. 247Sports has him ranked as the No. 50 overall prospect in the class of 2025, the No. 14 power forward in the country, and the No. 2 player in the state of Maryland.

Now for the bad news. It seems Cam Ward is likely going to commit to Michigan State. There have been two crystal balls registered on 247Sports in favor of Tom Izzo and the Spartans landing Ward's commitment. 247Sports recruiting insiders Justin Thind and Colby Giacubeno have both predicted Ward to commit to Michigan State. Thind is 179/181 all-time predicting commitments, including 2/2 in the class of 2025, while Giacubeno is 147/155 all-time and 33/33 in the class of 2025, including accurately predicting Chance Mallory to commit to Virginia last month.

Virginia is looking to fill its final scholarship spot for the 2025-2026 season and complete its 2025 recruiting class that currently consists of four-star point guard and Charlottesville native Chance Mallory, who decided to stay home and announced his commitment to the Cavaliers on September 20th.

With Ward likely heading to Michigan State, the last target on the 2025 recruiting board for Tony Bennett and the Cavaliers, at least for the moment, is five-star small forward Nate Ament, a Virginia native who is ranked among the top 10 overall prospects in the class of 2025 according to each of the major recruiting services, including a No. 4 spot in the most recent ESPN Top 100. Ament has visited UVA unofficially and is still expected to come back for an official visit at some point, but it seems he intends to let his recruitment play out through his senior year.

It seems it will be quite some time before we find out who will fill Virginia's final scholarship spot for the 2025-2026 season.

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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.