Around the Corner 8/24/22: Virginia basketball recruits heating up, Special Teams a priority for Tony Elliott

HUMP DAYYY. It’s ya man with the plan Zach back with another edition of Around the Corner covering your Virginia Cavaliers. Today’s a bit of a slow news day but still with a few stories worth noting. And, for a bit of housekeeping, we’ll have a few articles going up this afternoon so keep an eye out there. Additionally, we’re set to have two podcast episodes coming out before the Richmond game — one with Darns talking basketball and another with Paul joining Pierce and I to preview the football season as a whole.

Notable news

Tony Elliott on first fall Coach’s Corner show — Virginia Sports

In Elliott’s first Coach’s Corner leading up to the 2022 season (which you can watch at that link), he talked about where his squad is with a week and a half left before the season opener. He also teased a surprise with UVA’s uniforms this season, apparently something that was circulating social media in the last month. Not to go too far into the weeds, but what I’ve seen of late on the twitter-verse was a blacked out uniform that the official UVA account stated was them going filter happy...

Time will tell on that front. Orange helmets could be another possibility for Elliott to roll out.

Virginia plans to utilize its best players on special teams — Daily Progress

After UVA struggled at times with special teams under Bronco Mendenhall, Tony Elliott is taking a slightly different approach and focusing on playing the best players everywhere. Hopefully that pays dividends for the ‘Hoos come September 3rd.

Virginia Basketball Commit Blake Buchanan Skyrockets in 247 Rankings — Cavaliers Now

It was obviously gonna happen, but UVA basketball’s lone 2023 commit has shot up recruiting rankings recently and now sits 67th via 247Sports after previously being listed at 161st. A number of UVA’s other targets also rose significantly. Specifically, a player UVA appears to be in the lead for — Elijah Gertrude — took a huge leap up from 157th to 36th.

Listen, recruiting rankings truly don’t matter. They’re more a reflection of the interest players are getting from coaches than actual player by player evaluations. But these new rankings speak to each of these guys being late risers who the Wahoo staff has jumped on early enough to get their foot in the door.

For more recruiting coverage, be sure to listen to our latest podcast with the recruiting experts from HoozGotNext here and check out our article breaking down UVA’s top targets here. All signs point to this 2023 class turning out to be pretty darn successful for CTB and company.

Social media dive

Yesterday was the first day of classes for UVA students, so a number of athletic programs had fun with the first day of school vibes.

Football:

Men’s basketball:

Then, for less smiley content, UVA’s defensive back’s coach tweeted this yesterday after 2023 cornerback Jarvis Lee’s de-commitment and iffy comments on the Wahoo program from Monday.

Love the pettiness Coach Cox.

Student perspective

Add/drop season is well and alive for all Wahoo students. I’ve already been moving my schedule around in a number of ways after getting a first look at classes on Tuesday. Funnily enough, one class (that I’ve actually now dropped) which I attended yesterday included a pretty stacked list of UVA freshmen football players with kicker Will Bettridge, quarterback Delaney Crawford, and running back Xavier Brown.

Today is another day of evaluating classes and figuring out what my final schedule will be. Of course, it’s still syllabus week so the more extroverted of us will be out about town til the wee hours of the mornings until classes really start hitting next week. I’m currently mulling over enrolling in an 8am class to fill a gen-ed requirement... somebody talk me out of it.

Otherwise, life is getting back to normal on Grounds and around the Corner. Stay tuned to ATC as things start heating up (and, hopefully, cooling down) this fall.