Cavaliers Now

Virginia Basketball: Four-Star PG Chance Mallory Includes UVA in Top Six

Matt Newton

Four-star point guard and Charlottesville native Chance Mallory included Virginia in his top six schools.
Four-star point guard and Charlottesville native Chance Mallory included Virginia in his top six schools. / @LeagueRDY/X
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Virginia remains in the running for one of its top recruiting targets in the class of 2025. Charlottesville native and four-star point guard Chance Mallory narrowed down his recruitment to six schools and the hometown Hoos made the cut along with Clemson, Miami, Tennessee, Villanova, and Virginia Tech, as reported by On3's Joe Tipton on Tuesday.

Tony Bennett didn't have to look far on the recruiting trail to find Mallory, a 5'9" point guard who attends St. Anne's-Belfield School essentially across the street from John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville. Virginia officially extended a scholarship offer to Mallory about a year ago in June of 2023 and is one of more than 10 major conference programs to offer Mallory. In cutting down his list of schools to six contenders, Mallory eliminated programs like Maryland, Indiana, Butler, Seton Hall, and West Virginia.

Mallory has taken unofficial visits to each of these six schools except for Miami. Of course, visiting UVA is pretty easy for Mallory, who averaged 26.0 points, 8.4 rebounds, and 4.8 assists per game this past season at St. Anne's-Belfield. Mallory is a consensus four-star recruit across each of the major recruiting services. ESPN is lowest on him with a No. 97 overall ranking, but Mallory is the No. 61 overall recruit on 247Sports and the No. 35 overall recruit according to On3, which also has him ranked as the No. 5 point guard in the country and the No. 2 player in the state of Virginia.

Virginia might've helped and hurt its chances with Mallory with its transfer portal recruiting this offseason. With Kansas State guard Dai Dai Ames transferring in, the Cavaliers now have three underclassmen point/combo guards on their roster in Ames, Elijah Gertrude, and Christian Bliss. On the other hand, UVA also landed Vanderbilt transfer forward Carter Lang, a former teammate of Mallory's at St. Anne's-Belfield. It also doesn't hurt that Mallory's head coach at STAB, Damin Altizer, has a deep history of training with UVA basketball players in the offseason.

The Cavaliers are hoping that Mallory will follow in the footsteps of another STAB point guard Kymora Johnson, who had an excellent freshman season as the starting point guard for the UVA women's basketball program. Tony Bennett and company can also point to the success of Kihei Clark as an undersized point guard at Virginia.

Per the On3 report from Joe Tipton, Mallory is now in the process of scheduling official visits.

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Matt Newton

MATT NEWTON

Managing Editor and Publisher, CavaliersNow Email: mattnewton@virginia.eduTwitter: @mattynewtssWebsite | LinkedIn | Instagram Matt Newton is the managing editor and publisher at CavaliersNow. He has been covering UVA athletics since 2019 and has been the managing editor at CavaliersNow since launching the site in August 2021. Matt covers all things UVA sports, including Virginia basketball and football news and recruiting, former Wahoos in the pros, and coverage of all 23 of the NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia. A native of Downingtown, Pennsylvania, Matt grew up a huge Philadelphia sports fan, but has also been a UVA sports fanatic his entire life thanks to his parents, who are alums of the University of Virginia. Matt followed in his parents' footsteps and attended UVA from 2017-2021, graduating with a degree in Media Studies and a minor in Economics in May of 2021.