Morillo with 21 pts 9-12 fg vs Swiss today
Might end up being a top 40 recruit. Announcers keep mentioning āUCLA and Marquette amongst others recruiting Morilloā the disrespect to UVA
2 Likes
Tipton with the missed opportunity to full-name him as Billy āBlancoā White III
4 Likes
Same date as Bo Ogden?
1 Like
August 30 for the White visit, football opener. Same as Cole Cloer is planned, Itās all tentative this far out though.
8 Likes
Top 25 is really high. I think Iād be much more confident if it was top 40 instead. I just have a hard time seeing a top 15 kid commit to the new staff without seeing a bit more proof of concept. I think we can get Cloer but I also think itās very possible he may finish just outside the top 25 when itās said and done.
3 Likes
because you are used to Tony Bennett recruiting. We are in a new ERA of Ryan Odom basketball, embrace and be happy we know can get top 25 recruits to UVAā¦$$$$$$
5 Likes
New staff and in the new era I expect a lot of these top HS kids to commit much later when theoretically we will have some proof of concept to show.
Also I feel like we see it all the time where a new staff will get one or two big recruits right off the bat (and then often fizzle in later years).
Not many HS recruits are won with money, and that probably becomes even fewer with revenue sharing restrictions. The reason is pretty simple, the HS players worth giving a lot of money are NBA prospects who are more concerned about the big picture. Deron Rippey is looking for the place that will help him be a first round pick next year, whereas Jacari White is getting what he can now while he can. You can break a tie, thatās about it.
And I think youāll find 95% of 2026 recruits will be committed this fall like always. There is some motivation for the true cream of the crop to wait until spring, as theyāre essentially competing with transfers for roles. But itās not in the interest for the vast majority to get caught up in that. Jordan Smith is the one guy UVA is involved with whoāll probably hold out.
17 Likes
6 Likes
I ran a prompt of this through the Magic 8 Ball UVa pessimism Catch-22 GPT LLM and it parsed it this way:
NO. UVa will NEVER sign any top 25 recruit.
It then asked for a beera
3 Likes
I have no confidence weāll land Smith lol
What recruits would you say weāre the furthest along with right now?
I feel like I have the best vibes coming off of Gibson right now, and that the staff has clearly put a priority on Rippey, but could be totally misreading that.
I think we are swinging too high but hope Iām wrong. I fear the portal (NIL) is going to be our new sweet spot. The days of evaluating and developing is probably over for us.
1 Like
Well I wouldnāt say theyāre further along with anyone exactly because itās all going to be decided in the fall, or maybe later in a few cases. Odom isnāt Bennettā¦he doesnāt zero in and hawk recruits the same way, thereās no pushing to speed anyone up, at least not until the fall. And truthfully with the changes now, thatās a thing of the past anyway. There used to be annual rush of commitments right now ahead of the July live periods. Now, nothing.
Christian Gibson, Billy White III, Cole Cloer, Latrell Allmond. Those are serious targets. But for Odom, thereās not the same level of investment as under Bennett. Itās just get fall visits, try to put them in order of preference as much as possible, and take what you can get. This is how most teams have always recruited. TB was different.
8 Likes
Not getting great vibes on Allmond. Kids with weird lists seem like red flags. Idk what heās looking for. Also thought the move to Petersburg was an odd decision (yes I know heās just following his coach but it was a similarly odd nice for his coach). Get the sense that Adidas is calling the shots in that recruitment (even though heās mentioned some non adidas schools).
5 Likes