It’s remarkable how fast the new season arrives, isn’t it? We’re checking in for yet another season here at Hoos Place, where UVA basketball coverage was our first real niche and continues to be a pillar of our mission (see what we did there?)

It’s rarely a dull offseason under Tony Bennett. Between factors both internal and external, both of which we’ll talk about, there’s a lot to get updated on before the season gets underway against Navy in 22 days. We saw massive turnover in our own roster. We look around the league and see yet another season with a wide open opportunity for the ACC crown. And the NCAA passed two major new rules affecting not the flow of the game itself (like recent seasons with Freedom of Movement emphasis, or the relocation of the 3-point line), but instead ushering in sweeping changes to transfer eligibility and athletes’ Name/Image/Likeness (NIL) rights.

We’ll talk first about the NCAA changes. The most important decision was probably the elimination of the sit-out-year requirement for underclassmen transfers. Technically, only the first transfer is free, but combined with the already in place exemption for graduate transfers, this means 90%+ of transfers are effectively already immediate eligibility. The NCAA also decided that last year’s COVID year didn’t count towards players’ eligibility clock, so it was a free year effectively. So those two factors, combined with a lot of guys burned out from a herky-jerky COVID year with no fans and varying degrees of strictness from coaching staffs to maintain player bubbles, the offseason became a relative Wild West of transfers. The NIL legislation is fun to spitball about, and our guys are taking advantage of it to varying degrees, but ultimately I don’t want to waste too much breath on it because it really affects us very little; these guys making a little beer-and-gas money with Instagram promotions is a big nothing-burger as far as I’m concerned. But the free transfers and eligibility relief? That’ll be felt around college basketball for years to come.

Here at UVA, which in and of itself is plenty to talk about, the months of March, April, and May were beyond hectic. UVA won the ACC regular season for the fifth time in the last 8 seasons, which we refuse to take for granted. We opened the ACC Tournament with a thrilling buzzer beating win over a red-hot Syracuse, making a hero out of Reece Beekman. But then the season came crashing down, a positive COVID test from the roster ending our conference tourney run (opening the door for 4-seed GT to run away with it), and putting our team in a week-long quarantine before its first round NCAAT game. The rust of being stuck in a hotel room for a week was obvious the second that 4-13 game tipped, and UVA’s season ended with a whimpering 4-point loss to Ohio.

COVID eligibility relief meant technically every player on last year’s roster was able to return if they and Tony wanted. But that’s not how it played out. 5th Year Seniors Sam Hauser (All-ACC 1st Team) and Jay Huff (All-ACC 2nd Team) elected to begin their pro careers, winding up free agent signings of the Celtics and Wizards, respectively. 3rd year Trey Murphy did as well, drafted in the First Round by the Pelicans. 4th year Tomas Woldetensae returned to Italy to play pro basketball on the European side.

Those four departures were bad enough, being that they constituted 60% of our starting lineup and one of our key reserves. But complicating our “next man up” approach were the transfer defections of guard Casey Morsell (to ACC rival NC State), wing Jabri Abdur-Rahim (to Georgia), and forward Justin McKoy (to ACC rival UNC). These players all would’ve been in heavy contention for contributing, if not starring, roles on this year’s team, but it wasn’t meant to be.

I always hesitate to get too in depth on the reasons for transfers when it’s not as simple as “needed to move down a level to see meaningful PT,” which we’ve understandably seen in the past. These three guys all went to peer high-major programs, all three still power conference talents, so clearly there was something else afoot. Casey Morsell got ample opportunity both of his years here, and yet never found offensive rhythm. Much like Marial Shayok four years ago, Morsell is hoping that playing in a less structure, higher-tempo offense will rejuvenate his career, maybe even providing a spark for him to improve upon his career 20% 3-point shooting percentage. Abdur-Rahim, once heralded as one of Bennett’s most high profile recruiting gets, struggled to play the kind of defense that Tony demanded and as such left to play for a bad Georgia team (who we play next month in the Legends Classic) where he was promised all the PT he wanted.

The Justin McKoy departure caught folks by surprise, similar to Darius Thompson’s departure in 2017. His low-ish PT last season was easily justified by acknowledging he was stuck behind three NBA-quality upperclassmen in Huff, Hauser, and Murphy in the frontcourt. He did impress when given some opportunities, and it was well assumed McKoy was penciled in for the starting 4-spot on this year’s roster. We refuse to speculate how much his feelings were affected by either his being the positive test that undercut the finish to our season or any bad blood whispered in his ear by Morsell or Abdur-Rahim on their ways out the door. But the most persistent theory, backed up by comments McKoy made to Carolina media, is that he wanted to be played in more of a Small Forward type role, whereas Tony viewed him more as a modern power forward. And, look, I’ve watched McKoy for two years now… Tony was right. McKoy is absolutely best played as a face-up 4. Will new UNC coach Hubie Davis use him that way? Maybe. Or maybe that was just recruiting promises. We’ll see soon enough. But it was a disappointment nonetheless.

Virginia had taken, to that point, a small 2021 recruiting class, only 4-star international guard Taine Murray. The losses of seven faces from the roster, most of which hadn’t been projected, meant Bennett had to scramble to add enough faces even to play just 5-on-5 in practices this year without too much reliance on the walk-ons. Over the remainder of the spring he added two well-rated transfers in forward Jayden Gardner and wing Armaan Franklin (rated 13th and 55th in CBS Sports’ transfer rankings), as well as one more international prospect in Croatian (by way of Germany) forward Igor Milicic.

Even summer practices only saw eight scholarship players for much of the summer as Milicic had to finish things up in Europe before arriving in August and rising 4th year center Francisco Caffaro played in Tokyo with Argentina.

All this turnover, and the lack of returning production (Reece Beekman and Kihei Clark are the only returning members of last year’s primary rotation), means UVA has a ton of questions going into this year. KenPom ranks us only 45th nationally, 8th in the ACC.

With that said, once again the league is wide open. Only one player from the ACC 1st or 2nd team returns (VT’s Keve Aluma). There are new coaches at Boston College (Earl Grant replaces Jim Christian) and North Carolina (Hubert Davis replaces HoF’er Roy Williams). To varying degrees the transfer portal and NBA/graduation decisions hit plenty of other league rosters almost as hard as ours. Duke will probably be everyone’s Preseason ACC Champion pick out of lazy habit, unnecessary reverence for its latest haul of baby-faced 5-stars, and of course the Coach K retirement tour. But frankly any number of teams could crash the party at the top of the conference this season. Maybe Tony Bennett works another roster miracle. Maybe VT proves pundits right as this year’s Cinderella darling. Notre Dame has impressive continuity in a year everyone else is suffering roster churn. Louisville and Miami have plenty of pieces on paper and just need to actually put them all together. And UNC finally returns its starting PG for the first time in three seasons, perhaps providing the veteran presence they’ve been lacking lately.

Watching ACC basketball is a passion we all share, obviously. Even in the Virginia’s weaker seasons, the allure of watching the history and the pageantry and the parade of talent is too much to resist. Now that we get to enjoy all of that with Tony Bennett at the helm of our club, all the sweeter.

We’ll spend the next three weeks breaking down both this year’s Hoos as well as the rest of the conference, so that come the start of the season in Mid-November, we’re all ready to appreciate another great season, hopefully one this year that feels a bit more normal after last year was played without fans. It may be a weird year for the Hoos with all these new faces, of course, and we can’t promise the season won’t be without some hiccups as transfers, incumbents, and the next generation of underclassmen all build themselves into a cohesive team.

But who cares? We get to go back to JPJ this year, watch UVA play under its National Champion banner and its impressive collection of recent ACC championship banners, knowing that once again Virginia’s team is going to be one of class and toughness, and once again coached by the best to ever call Charlottesville home, one of the best the ACC has ever seen. How can you not be excited about that?