Fresh on the heels of completing his second official visit, three-star wing Jamie Kaiser of Bishop Ireton says he came away from the UVa trip with a deeper appreciation for what Tony Bennett and the Wahoos have to offer and are really all about.
“It was a really nice visit,” Kaiser told CavsCorner. “It was actually Coach Bennet’s birthday the first day I got there so I really appreciated him having me up there on his special day. I got to go to his house, hang out with some of the guys, got in his pool, hung out with his family, and just really got to learn more about him and the rest of the coaching staff right away on the first day I was there.”
The second part of the trip was an action-packed day as Kaiser was able to explore a lot of different things on Grounds.
“We talked a lot about basketball on the second day of the trip,” he explained. “I watched a lot of film with Coach Bennett. I got to see what they do with the strength and conditioning coach and then I was able to talk to a few people at the business school and then I was able to learn some more academic things about the school. It was a really productive day.”
Virginia has been stressing the importance of needing shooters and Kaiser certainly fits the bill as he has been one of the top shooters on the 3SSB circuit this spring.
“They really like big guards and I kind of knew that going in,” Kaiser said, “but they really emphasized the shooting when I got there. The staff was telling me how they really need more shooters. They were telling me they needed the type of shooters they had when they won the national championship.
“The past few years they have not had the type of shooters they needed so they are really putting an emphasis on shooting,” he added, “because they want the type of shooters they had when they won the national championship.”
Kaiser, who has also taken an official visit to Wisconsin, is more than a shooter and Bennett compares Kaiser to three former Wahoos.
“They said that I am similar to a Ty Jerome that can shoot it but being a bigger guard, I can defend like Malcolm Brogdon but they said my body type was like a younger Justin Anderson type so they told me about those three guys specifically,” he recalled. “They were big guards, physical guards and guys that can really shoot it.”
Being from the Commonwealth, Kaiser has known about UVa forever and has called it a “dream school” in the past. With him having finally gotten to go there on a visit, he was able to learn about a lot about some of the tools that the basketball team uses.
“They are really big into technology,” he said. “They have this tool in the gym called a Noah’s Arc and it reads your shot by like how many degrees high you shoot it and how the ball approaches the bucket after you shoot it and really measures how assertive you are.”
Quite often recruits are always blown away by Mike Curtis and the strength and conditioning aspect of the basketball program and Kaiser raved about what he saw.
“The strength and conditioning program uses a lot of technology too,” he said. “They have all these motion detectors and stuff like that. All of those things were really new to me and were really cool to see. You can tell how much time is spent doing strength and conditioning stuff.”
Fifth-year senior Kihei Clark is the longest-tenured Cavalier on the current roster and he was able to give Kaiser some really good advice.
“His thing was just trusting the process with Coach Bennett,” Kaiser said. “He was telling me that they have built a winning attitude and that you just have to trust him because at the end of the day the entire staff is there looking out for you.”
With two official visits down, next up is an official visit to Maryland soon with a possible decision looming after that.
“I am supposed to go to Maryland on June 8th and 9th,” he said. “I have narrowed my list down to Virginia, Indiana, Miami, Boston College, Iowa, Wake Forest, West Virginia, Maryland and Wisconsin. I want to commit sometime this month in June.”
