Everyone expected UVa to have a lot of portal entries following the season. And it makes sense, given the year the program has had and the coaching change. Some of the transfer decisions were predictable, and others seemed more up in the air, but when the dust settled this week, only one scholarship player from the 2024-25 team remained, and none of UVa’s production from this season is set to return next year.

Redshirt sophomore guard Elijah Gertrude is the only scholarship player remaining on the roster. Gertrude missed his second season at UVa with a knee injury and at least as of now, is set to return. While the departures of Isaac McKneely, Andrew Rohde and others seemed more likely than not, others, like Ishan Sharma and Elijah Saunders, seemed more up in the air, at least from the outside. Some of UVa’s portal entries have already found landing spots, and those that have not could still technically return, but it’s typically far more likely that a player will find a new home rather than return to their existing one.

There are a lot of unknowns right now, and it’s nearly impossible to project at this time what a 2025-26 roster will look like. Virginia currently has three players set to be on the roster next year, with 10 open spots. Will they fill all of them with transfers, or try to add another high school player or two? Or will they leave a spot or two open? We’ll see. But as of now, UVa is, frankly, looking for five new starters and several bench options to compete for minutes with the three players already on the 2025-26 team.

Virginia landed their second of two 2025 commits this week, flipping forward Silas Barksdale from VCU to UVa. Barksdale will follow the staff that recruited him to the Rams, and, thus far, is the only player to follow Odom and staff to Charlottesville. Barksdale joined Charlottesville native Chance Mallory in the 2025 class. Mallory committed to UVa just under two weeks ago, the same day that Odom’s hire was announced.

While the two commitments are noteworthy on their own, it’s interesting that both are in-state products. Virginia recruited nationally under Tony Bennett, and while the staff certainly didn’t ignore local products in their respective recruitments, they didn’t end up signing many of them. UVa had a presence in DC, but Mallory and Barksdale will be the first Virginians to sign with the program out of high school since BJ Stith in the 2014 class. (Mamadi Diakite is listed as being from the area, but is from Guinea and played prep basketball locally).

Mallory was committed to Bennett and his staff though, so it’s not like his pledge wasn’t going to happen until Odom arrived. At VCU, Barksdale would’ve been one of several Virginia natives on the roster, and the Rams certainly had more of a local presence than UVa has had in quite some time. Are the commitments of Mallory and Barksdale the start of a trend, or the product of a very small sample size? Schools like UVa will always recruit nationally but UVa’s local recruiting presence will be interesting to track as the 2026 recruiting cycle heats up, and beyond.

So far, Odom’s initial staff is shaking out as expected. Odom was able to hire away Longwood coach Griff Aldrich to serve as associate head coach at Virginia. Aldrich, who led Longwood to their first two NCAA Tournament appearances in school history, played with Odom at Hampden-Sydney and was on Odom’s staff at UMBC. Odom is also bringing over three familiar

faces from his VCU staff. Matt Henry and Bryce Crawford have followed Odom through his various stops, from UMBC to Utah State to VCU, and now to UVa. Odom also hired VCU grad Darius Theus, who wasn’t with Odom prior to his arrival in Richmond, to the new UVa staff. Theus had worked at VCU before Odom’s arrival and was an assistant at Siena as well.

The question now is what roles are left for any Bennett era holdovers? Odom seemed pretty clear in his introductory press conference that strength coach Mike Curtis would be back. There’s also a spot or two on the staff for a UVa holdover if he wants to go that route, and there are also “off-court” roles available, like the one that Kyle Guy had this year.

While there have been plenty of departures to talk about, UVa fans don’t have a transfer portal addition to discuss just yet. UVa’s new staff started their work on the portal last week, and hosted a few visitors, though none have led to quick commitments. Odom hosted VCU’s Brandon Jennings and Luke Bamgboye, and we’ll see if those recruitments wrap soon or if they drag on past the dead period with more visits to come. UVa also hosted Nevada big man Nick Davidson, who committed to Clemson earlier this week.

While it’s easy to panic at the lack of new players, especially given the roster situation, fans should probably trust the process at this point. There’s plenty of talent in the portal with new players entering every day and UVa has a virtual blank slate from an NIL perspective, and virtually limitless playing time to sell. There won’t be any more visits until next Thursday at the earliest as all schools are in the dead period for the week around the Final Four, but we expect things to pick up on Grounds after that.

This week, UVa’s departing players have started to land in new places. So far, all of UVa’s transfers that have made a decision ended up at high-major programs. Blake Buchanan committed to Iowa State early in the week, while Dai Dai Ames signed with Cal after a visit to Berkeley over the weekend. Later in the week, Isaac McKneely committed to Louisville and a few hours later, Andrew Rohde announced he’s headed to Wisconsin. It will be interesting to track how this now scattered roster fairs at their next stops and what sort of roles they have on that team. But it was clear this year watching that while the team had plenty of individual ability, that potential wasn’t realized when they played together as one group.