The Commitment: After landing FSU guard Jalen Warley last weekend, UVa landed a pair of transfer additions the follow Monday, starting with Duke forward TJ Power. A Massachusetts native, Power chose UVa over a bunch of other ACC programs he was considering, including Boston College, Wake Forest, Notre Dame and Virginia Tech.
One of UVa’s priority targets in the 2023 recruiting class before ultimately signing with Duke, Power became the latest “bounce back” recruitment win for Tony Bennett, landing a transfer player after losing out in the high school recruitment. Power joins the likes Anthony Gill Braxton Key, Sam Hauser, Austin Nichols and others in the bounce-back category.
What it means for UVa: Virginia desperately needed at least one option to start at the 4 spot and Power was one of two transfer additions that fill that need. He has the ability to play at the 3 or 4 and could potentially play the 5 in a small lineup, purely based on his size. Power’s addition, along with the two other transfers added, leaves the Cavaliers with one scholarship spot available that they can use, pocket, or award to a walk-on.
Power is also a significant recruiting win for UVa and has the potential to show that elite talent can hit it big in Bennett’s scheme, a system that has been more under scrutiny this offseason than it has in quite some time. He is the second-highest ranked player in the Rivals rankings to suit up for Virginia under Bennett, at No. 22 overall in his class, and is the second five-star to end up at UVa under this staff (Nichols was 17th in the 2013 class before an ill-fated and dramatically short career at UVa after starting at Memphis.)
What he brings: Power gives UVa one thing it desperately needed to add in the transfer portal: Talent. And specifically, talent in a few key areas that Virginia needed upgrades.
He is a solid outside shooter with size who can play the 4, something UVa didn’t really have a little over a week ago, at least from a player with college basketball experience. Power can handle the ball well for a player of his size, and has potential to play in the post. He also has three years of remaining eligibility, which could allow for him to transition into a larger role as a sophomore and potentially break out and reach his potential as an upperclassman.
What Power doesn’t bring is a lot of collegiate productivity. There’s a relatively good reason for that, though: Despite being a five-star recruit, he was the lowest-ranked commit in Duke’s class and the Blue Devils ended up bringing back more talent last year than they typically do. Power was relegated to a bench role behind a talented Duke frontcourt, led by Kyle Filipowski and Mark Mitchell.
As a freshman, Power played in 26 games, averaging 6.7 minutes per contest. The 6-foot-9 forward scored 2.1 points per game, shooting 33.3 percent from the field (17-of-51). Power shot 42 of his 51 shots from deep, making 15 of them for a 35.7 percent average. He also played 10+ minutes in just seven games (including 13 minutes against UVa) and had his best performance against La Salle, going 3-for-4 from 3 for a career-high 9 points.
For a UVa comparison, Power scored one more point than Elijah Gertrude did last season.
The Projection: If UVa is going to be better than the Wahoos were last year, or even at the same level, they need Power to come in and be a key contributor right away. The good news is that he has the talent to do it and would have had a bigger role at nearly any other college program last season than he did at Duke.
But Power’s role at Virginia and how much he’ll be able to contribute next season is still a projection, given how little we saw of him with the Blue Devils.
At Duke, he would play a few minutes off the bench and usually posted up in the corner and took 3s when he got an open look there. UVa will certainly want to get him those same looks but he’ll also need to take on a more diverse role, playing at the rim and within UVa’s schemes. Power will also need to work on his defense once he’s on Grounds but the good news is that he has the raw ability to learn and and could be, at a minimum, not a liability in the pack-line.
If Power comes in and plays like a five-star prospect from Day 1, it changes the trajectory of UVa’s 2024-25 season and any seasons beyond that which include him. Power has the ability to lead an ACC program in scoring, though that might be a bit much to ask of him this year, and as we’ve said before, would simply be a projection based on talent, rather than using evidence from his college career to date.
Still, we expect Power to come to Charlottesville and either be a Day 1 starter or the first player off the bench, depending on what lineup Bennett prefers. If we had to guess, Power is probably going to lead all UVa newcomers in scoring and should play significant minutes right out of the gate. And assuming he plays multiple years in orange and blue, he has the potential to become the team’s best player in his second or third year in orange and blue.
