Beta Bridge gets a fresh coat of Virginia Basketball love

Redemption, Not Boring, Joy Comes in the Morning...we’ve got them all right here. Click through to see these designs and more!

The confetti has settled. Students have gone their separate ways as Final Exercises gave way to Reunions, which gave way to the dog days of summer. The NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP trophies are touring the country bringing joy in the morning to alumni and fans everywhere. But for some super fans, there is no such thing as the offseason.

Frances Newman, Rachael Inlow, Davida Rimm-Kaufman, and Clare Inlow are four such super fans, who know that as the Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball program loses five players—one to graduation, three to the NBA Draft, and one to the transfer portal—the school also gains five new players, and that preparations for the 2019-2020 season have already started.

To that end, the four painted Beta Bridge the night of June 22 to thank the departing players and welcome the new ones to Charlottesville.

We caught up with Newman, an incoming first-year who just graduated from Charlottesville High School. She told us that, having grown up in Charlottesville, she’s always been a Wahoo fan, but the fanhood intensified, particularly in basketball, when her older brother went to UVA eight years ago.

“I’ve stayed a big hoops fan ever since then and my friends and I always get excited about the new class, so we decided to welcome them this year in a way they’d see.”

Frances Newman

Above, she welcomes the new scholarship first years, Casey Morsell, Kadin Shedrick, and Justin McKoy. The group also welcomes Indian Hills CC transfer Tomas Woldetensae and Marquette transfer Sam Hauser, as well as preferred walk-on Chase Coleman.

They also wanted to to congratulate the departing players:

Frances Newman

Notice anyone missing? Whoops. No respect for Jack Salt, apparently.

Kidding, she was embarrassed to admit that they forgot to wish Jack Salt—who’s getting his shot with the Phoenix Suns in the Summer League—good luck as well. But some mysterious other super fan in Charlottesville lent a helping hand.

Frances Newman

Though she made it to a few games at John Paul Jones Arena last year, Newman unfortunately missed out on the trip of a lifetime to head to Minneapolis. Instead, she watched the championship game on the Jumbotron inside of a packed JPJ. This fall, she’ll be entering her first year at UVA and is excited to watch all the games from the student section.

For her graffiti co-conspirators, Rachel Inlow is a sophomore at Clark University, Rimm-Kaufman just graduated from Charlottesville High and will be hiking the Appalachian Trail next year, and Clare Inlow will be a senior at CHS.