Around the Corner 10/18: De’Andre Hunter signs massive contract extension, Ty Jerome and Mamadi Diakite sign two-way deals

Hello my dear Wahoo friends and thank you for joining me in another day of Virginia Cavaliers news. Apologies for being a bit MIA with Around the Corner over the last few days. Life gets ahead of you.

But, with that out of the way, we’ve got a day full of good news for NBA ‘Hoos, more looks at the UVA men’s basketball team, and some perspective on the Virginia football team as it tries to get back on track in the back half of the season.

Notable news

De’Andre Hunter, Hawks Agree to 4-Year, $95M Contract Extension — Bleacher Report

Huge deal for Dre which got done just before the rookie contract extension deadline. Good to see him secure the bag especially considering his struggles with injuries of late. While with a breakout season this year he could’ve made more money, this is still a very very good contract for him as he is now locked in to an Atlanta Hawks young core that has plenty of potential for the future led by Trae Young.

Warriors sign Ty Jerome and Anthony Lamb to two-way contracts — Golden State of Mind

Hunter’s teammate and classmate at UVA, Ty Jerome took advantage of his training camp deal with the Warriors and earned one of the teams two two-way contracts. It’s a shame that he hasn’t yet found a team to take him on an NBA deal where he could earn real minutes. But Golden State is still a great organization to be a part of.

Cleveland Cavaliers sign Mamadi Diakite to two-way contract — Cleveland.com

Along with Jerome, Diakite has now also signed a two-way deal after getting waived. He particularly impressed in preseason as he averaged 9.3 points, 4.5 rebounds, 1.2 steals and 1.2 blocks in 16.8 minutes per game. While he’ll be with Cleveland’s G League team a lot, he still could get some opportunities with the Cavaliers as well.

Virginia’s Tony Elliott: ‘Either we heal as a team or we die as individuals’ — Wahoos247

Good story from Jacquie here on the football team through six games and how Tony Elliott in particular is assessing his group heading into the second half of the season.

“We’ve underachieved based off of what our talent is. And what’s the gap? The gap is we need to be a team,” said Virginia head coach Tony Elliott. “We’ve got to come together and we’ve all got to do our job.”

Elliott has been focused on his side coming together as a team the last few weeks, often going back to one quote.

“Either we heal as a team or we die as individuals’,” Elliott said on Monday, referencing the Al Pacino quote from ‘Any Given Sunday. “That’s been some of the things that are happening to us when we haven’t been successful is that, A. we’re dying as individuals because we’re not healing as a team. We’re not coming together as a team.”

Social media dive

First up in the social media dive, it was great to see Nigel Johnson at the Blue-White games over the weekend. To support him financially following his horrible accident, here’s the link to his GoFundMe.

The UVA men’s lacrosse team had a pair of scrimmages up in NOVA this Sunday. While a lot of the team’s top players are banged up or played with Team USA (Connor Shellenberger in particular), it game some of the Wahoos’ young guns chances against legit competition versus Lehigh and Penn State.

Lastly a little tweet from me on the success of UVA players in the NBA. Sure, there are some guys on two-ways and whatnot. But there are also three guys who are set to/continue to make bank on their current contracts. And that really does mean something.

Student perspective

Phew. Midterms are back and hitting hard. I’ve got something like five exams/essays due this week alone. So the grind is definitely real right now on Grounds.

That said, Saturday at the Blue-White games was tons of fun. Was great to see the new guys play in person. We’ll be talking about that in further detail on our podcast later today in addition to the two stories we put up on Saturday.

I’ve also been trying a few of the local food spots that have been recommended to me after my story on the top places around Charlottesville and UVA from last week. Take It Away sandwiches was one in particular that I enjoyed eating while at the scrimmages on Saturday. And am currently planning on grabbing lunch there today.

Hope you all have a terrific Tuesday and we’ll catch you back here tomorrow.