WATCH: Virginia Basketball has its first practice in 2019-20 season

The focus this week is on No. 18 Virginia Football’s trip to South Bend to take on the No. 10 Fighting Irish. But the basketball season is right around the corner, and the reigning National Champions took to the court for the first official practice of the 2019-20 season on Wednesday (September 25).

There are a lot of new faces on the Cavalier squad this season as Ty Jerome, Kyle Guy, and De’Andre Hunter all left early for the NBA, Jack Salt graduated and is playing overseas, Frankie Badocchi left the program to focus on his studies, and Marco Anthony transferred to Utah State.

First years Kadin Shedrick, Casey Morsell, Justin McKoy, and Chase Coleman are all new to Charlottesville this season, and they’re joined by JuCo transfer Tomas Woldetensae. Marquette transfer Sam Hauser will be on the bench this season, but has to sit out a year per NCAA transfer rules.

Here are the highlights from the first practice:

Let’s break things down a little further.

The brand new National Championship banner is featured prominently in its new home above the band/student section. You really can’t hate this opening shot:

We get some establishing shots of Tony Bennett setting up equipment and Mamadi Diakite passing against a net. Then we get a look at this new (?!) rebounding contraption:

There’s a lot of low-fiving, stretching, some yelling instructions from Bennett, and shots of Morsell pulling up and draining a shot.

We get our first look at Woldetensae at the 16 second mark. NO LOOK PASS ALERT:

A Jay Huff above-the-rim dunk is followed by Braxton Key kissing it off the glass above Shedrick. The ensuing highlight is Francisco Caffaro pulling down a monster rebound, something Virginia fans will hopefully see a lot of this season:

At the 29 second mark, we get back-to-back assists from Kihei Clark. The first was a lob to first year Kadin Shedrick for the dunk, the second a bounce pass to Diakite.

There’s a championship caliber shoulder shimmy from Diakite after a made bucket at the :42 mark, and it needs to be a gif immediately.

As we get closer to basketball season, we’ll up the coverage here at Streaking the Lawn. Until then, just watch these highlights on repeat to hold you over.